A Very English Scandal

Author: John Preston
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 1590518152
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 361

Book Description
The basis for the Emmy award-winning limited series starring Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw A behind-the-scenes look at the desperate, scandalous private life of a British MP and champion manipulator, and the history-making trial that exposed his dirty secrets While Jeremy Thorpe served as a Member of Parliament and Leader of the Liberal Party in the 1960s and 70s, his bad behavior went under the radar for years. Police and politicians alike colluded to protect one of their own. In 1970, Thorpe was the most popular and charismatic politician in the country, poised to hold the balance of power in a coalition government. But Jeremy Thorpe was a man with a secret. His homosexual affairs and harassment of past partners, along with his propensity for lying and embezzlement, only escalated as he evaded punishment. Until a dark night on the moor with an ex-lover, a dog and a hired gun led to consequences that even his charm and power couldn’t help him escape. Dubbed the “Trial of the Century,” Thorpe’s climactic case at the Old Bailey in London was the first time that a leading British politician had stood trial on a murder charge, the first time that a murder plot had been hatched in the House of Commons. And it was the first time that a prominent public figure had been exposed as a philandering gay man, in an era when homosexuality had only just become legal. With the pace and drama of a thriller, A Very English Scandal is an extraordinary story of hypocrisy, deceit and betrayal at the heart of the British Establishment.

A Very English Scandal

Author: John Preston
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 1590518144
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 361

The Politics of Court Scandal in Early Modern England

Author: Alastair Bellany
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521035439
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Book Description
This is a detailed 2002 study of the political significance of the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, 1613.

A Very British Coup

Author: Chris Mullin
Publisher: Serpent's Tail
ISBN: 9781846687402
Category : Conspiracies
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description
The classic political thriller that foretold the rise of Corbyn, from the acclaimed author of A View from the Foothills

The Grit in the Pearl

Author: Lyndsy Spence
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750991062
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 285

Book Description
The shocking true story behind A Very British Scandal, starring Claire Foy and Paul Bettany Margaret, Duchess of Argyll's life was one of complexity and controversy. Born Ethel Margaret Whigham, the only child of a Scottish self-made millionaire and a beautiful high-society woman, her childhood was rich and splendid – but empty. She was a daddy's girl with an absent father, living with a jealous mother who sought to remind Margaret of her every shortcoming. As she grew up, her name was a byword for class and beauty; she was the debutante of her coming-out year, and her marriage to Charles Sweeny literally stopped traffic. But it was not to last: Margaret needed more. What followed was a story of tragedy, scandal and heartbreak as Margaret swung from lover to lover, society to society. This culminated in her notorious divorce case of 1963, where her soon-to-be-ex-husband produced his pie`ce de résistance: a Polaroid of her in a compromising position with two other men. In The Grit in the Pearl, Lyndsy Spence takes a look at a woman who was ahead of her time. Using previously unpublished sources and personal transcripts, this is the story of a fragile woman who was to come up against the very highest echelons of English high society – and lose.

An English Affair: Sex, Class and Power in the Age of Profumo

Author: Richard Davenport-Hines
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 000743586X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 472

Book Description
WINNER OF THE POLITICAL BOOK AWARDS POLITICAL HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2014. Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the Profumo scandal, An English Affair is a sharp-focused snapshot of a nation on the brink of social revolution.

A Treasury of Royal Scandals

Author: Michael Farquhar
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780140280241
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Book Description
From Nero's nagging mother (whom he found especially annoying after taking her as his lover) to Catherine's stable of studs (not of the equine variety), here is a wickedly delightful look at the most scandalous royal doings you never learned about in history class. Gleeful, naughty, sometimes perverted-like so many of the crowned heads themselves-A Treasury of Royal Scandals presents the best (the worst?) of royal misbehavior through the ages. From ancient Rome to Edwardian England, from the lavish rooms of Versailles to the dankest corners of the Bastille, the great royals of Europe have excelled at savage parenting, deadly rivalry, pathological lust, and meeting death with the utmost indignity-or just very bad luck.

Almost a Scandal

Author: Elizabeth Essex
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250003792
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
Posing as a young man, Sally Kent, taking her brother's place in the British Royal Navy, climbs aboard a ship where Lieutenant David Colyear sees through her charade but agrees to keep her on as they embark on a high-seas adventure.

Scandal of Colonial Rule

Author: James Epstein
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110700330X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 315

Book Description
A dramatic history of the British public's confrontation with the iniquities of nineteenth-century colonial rule. James Epstein uses the trial of the first governor of Trinidad for the torture of a freewoman of color to reassess the nature of British colonialism and the ways in which empire troubled the metropolitan imagination.

The Dig

Author: John Preston
Publisher: Other Press, LLC
ISBN: 1590517806
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
THE BASIS FOR THE NETFLIX FILM STARRING CAREY MULLIGAN, RALPH FIENNES, AND LILY JAMES A literary adventure that tells the story of a priceless buried treasure discovered in England on the eve of World War II In the long, hot summer of 1939, Britain is preparing for war, but on a riverside farm in Suffolk there is excitement of another kind. Mrs. Pretty, the widowed owner of the farm, has had her hunch confirmed that the mounds on her land hold buried treasure. As the dig proceeds, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary find. This fictional recreation of the famed Sutton Hoo dig follows three months of intense activity when locals fought outsiders, professionals thwarted amateurs, and love and rivalry flourished in equal measure. As the war looms ever closer, engraved gold peeks through the soil, and each character searches for answers in the buried treasure. Their threads of love, loss, and aspiration weave a common awareness of the past as something that can never truly be left behind.