The Sex Secrets Of Old England

Download or read book The Sex Secrets Of Old England written by Nigel Cawthorne and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2018-09-06 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once again, Nigel Cawthorne takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the strange, hidden sexual history of England. The history of sex in Britain has been largely glossed over by 'proper' historians: Nigel Cawthorne has burrowed deep into the archives to reveal exactly what our ancestors got up to in bed (and out of it). There are chapters on the ancient arts of seduction, adultery, brothels, 'the English vice', contraception, defloration, and many more - from the torrid Tudors to the supposedly strait-laced Victorians.

Download or read book The Beastly Battles Of Old England written by Nigel Cawthorne and published by Piatkus. This book was released on 2011-10-06 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout history the English have been a warlike lot. Often we fight among ourselves - there have been a good few civil wars - and when we were not slaughtering each other, we practiced on our neighbours, the Scots, the Irish, the French . . . When that got too easy, we set off around the world to find other people to fight. This was usually done with a hubris that invited some ludicrous pratfall. In THE BEASTLY BATTLES OF OLD ENGLAND, Nigel Cawthorne takes us on a darkly humorous journey through some of our ill-advised military actions. From the war over a severed ear to a general seeking out his rival's mistresses to even the score, it is a miscellany of insufferable arrogance, reckless gallantry, stunning stupidity, massive misjudgements and general beastliness.

Download or read book The Strange Laws Of Old England written by Nigel Cawthorne and published by Piatkus. This book was released on 2015-11-05 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Did you know that: It's against the law to check into a hotel in London under assumed names for the purpose of lovemaking? Under a statute of Edwards II all whales washed up on the shore belong to the monarch? Under a Tudor law Welshmen are not allowed into the city of Chester after dark? In THE STRANGE LAWS OF OLD ENGLAND, Nigel Cawthorne unearths an extraordinary collection of the most bizarre and arcane laws that have been enacted over the centuries. Some of the laws, incredibly, are still in force. It is still illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament in a suit of armour . . . This elegant and amusing book is perfect for everyone fascinated by the eccentric history of these islands.

Download or read book The Sinking of RMS Tayleur written by Gill Hoffs and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2014-01-15 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The moment they fell into the water the waves caught them and dashed them violently against the rocks, and the survivors on shore could perceive the unfortunate creatures...struggling amidst the waves, and one by one sinking under them.' (Hereford Times, 28 January 1854) ??The wrecking of the RMS Tayleur made headlines nearly 60 years before the Titanic. Both were run by the White Star Line, both were heralded as the most splendid ships of their time – and both sank in tragic circumstances on their maiden voyages. ??On 19 January 1854 the Tayleur, a large merchant vessel, left Liverpool for Australia; packed with hopeful emigrants, her hold stuffed with cargo. On the 160th anniversary of the disaster, Gill Hoffs reveals new theories behind the disaster and tells the stories of the passengers and crew on the ill-fated vessel: ??Captain John Noble, record breaking hero of the Gold Rush era. ??Ship surgeon Robert Hannay Cunningham and his young family, on their way to a new life among the prospectors of Tent City. ??Samuel Carby, ex-convict, returning to the gold fields with his new wife – and a fortune sewn into her corsets. ??But the ship's revolutionary iron hull prevented its compasses from working. Lost in the Irish Sea, a storm swept the Tayleur and the 650 people aboard towards a cliff, studded with rocks 'black as death'. What happened next shocked the world.??As featured in the Daily Mail, Yorkshire Post, Manchester Evening News, Hereford Times, Liverpool Echo, The Press & Journal, Dundee Courier, Fife Herald, Discover Your History, Your Family Tree, the Warrington Guardian and on BBC Radio Manchester, BBC Radio Merseyside, RTE Radio, Radio Warrington, Kingdom FM.

Download or read book Full Service written by Scotty Bowers and published by Grove. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The wholesome image of America propagated by Hollywood in the 1940s, '50s and '60s is one of the most persistent in popular culture: loving wives, smiling children. But off the set, many of the actors who helped create this image were secretly leading very wild lives, and one man in particular was helping them: Scotty Bowers. At a time when sex outside of marriage was taboo, Scotty built up a reputation as the guy who could discreetly fix you up. Scotty slept with many stars himself, and connected others with his friends. Here, he tells his story for the first time. Scotty came to Hollywood after serving in the Marines in World War II, and began working at a gas station on Hollywood Boulevard. One day, he was approached and picked up by actor Walter Pidgeon, who whisked him off to a friend's villa for the first of many encounters with Hollywood's rich and famous. He developed long-term friendships with stars like Katharine Hepburn and Noel Coward, but he always kept it quiet--until he now provides a lost chapter in the history of the sexual revolution.--From publisher description.

Download or read book The Queen's Secret written by Jean Plaidy and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-02-10 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Katherine of Valois was born a princess, the daughter of King Charles VI of France. But by the time Katherine was old enough to know him, her father had come to be called “Charles the Mad,” given to unpredictable fits of insanity. The young princess lived a secluded life, awaiting her father’s sane moments and suffering through the mad ones, as her mother took up with her uncle and their futures became more and more uncertain. Katherine’s fortunes appeared to be changing when, at nineteen, she was married to King Henry V of England. Within two years, she gave birth to an heir—but her happiness was fleeting. Soon after the birth of her son, she lost her husband to an illness. With Joan of Arc inciting the French to overthrow English rule, Katherine’s loyalty to her adopted homeland of England became a matter of intense suspicion. Katherine had brought her dowry and borne her heir; what use was she to England? It was decreed that she would live out her remaining years alone, far from the seat of power. But no one, not even Katherine herself, could have anticipated that she would fall in love with and secretly marry one of her guardians, Owen Tudor—or that a generation later, their grandson would become the first king of the great Tudor dynasty.

Download or read book The Secret History of Domesticity written by Michael McKeon and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2006-12-26 with total page 919 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, Association of American Publishers’ Professional and Scholarly Publishing Awards in Communication and Cultural Studies Taking English culture as its representative sample, The Secret History of Domesticity asks how the modern notion of the public-private relation emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Treating that relation as a crucial instance of the modern division of knowledge, Michael McKeon narrates its pre-history along with that of its essential component, domesticity. This narrative draws upon the entire spectrum of English people's experience. At the most "public" extreme are political developments like the formation of civil society over against the state, the rise of contractual thinking, and the devolution of absolutism from monarch to individual subject. The middle range of experience takes in the influence of Protestant and scientific thought, the printed publication of the private, the conceptualization of virtual publics—society, public opinion, the market—and the capitalization of production, the decline of the domestic economy, and the increase in the sexual division of labor. The most "private" pole of experience involves the privatization of marriage, the family, and the household, and the complex entanglement of femininity, interiority, subjectivity, and sexuality. McKeon accounts for how the relationship between public and private experience first became intelligible as a variable interaction of distinct modes of being—not a static dichotomy, but a tool to think with. Richly illustrated with nearly 100 images, including paintings, engravings, woodcuts, and a representative selection of architectural floor plans for domestic interiors, this volume reads graphic forms to emphasize how susceptible the public-private relation was to concrete and spatial representation. McKeon is similarly attentive to how literary forms evoked a tangible sense of public-private relations—among them figurative imagery, allegorical narration, parody, the author-character-reader dialectic, aesthetic distance, and free indirect discourse. He also finds a structural analogue for the emergence of the modern public-private relation in the conjunction of what contemporaries called the "secret history" and the domestic novel. A capacious and synthetic historical investigation, The Secret History of Domesticity exemplifies how the methods of literary interpretation and historical analysis can inform and enrich one another.