First published in 1932, this is the story of eighteenth century Bath, where Beau Nash ruled as uncrowned king for so many years, the fashionable members of English society found a splendid justification for improving their health and enjoying themselves at the same time. They took the waters assiduously, gambled excessively, danced away the evenings at cotillion balls, and spent the mornings strolling along the Parades in their elegant finery, and exchanging gossip in the coffee houses. Writers, actors, artists and politicians shared the city's delights with exalted members of the...

No hive can tolerate two Queens. In the fatal clash between the Protestant Queen of England and the Catholic Queen of Scots, many were determined that 'The death of Mary is the life of Elizabeth'.

In this moving chronicle a modern poet magnificently recaptures the splendid colour and sordid intrigue of the most spectacular period of history in Britain.

First published in 1943, this is a selection of writings from Dr. Sitwell's private notebooks. It includes essays on prosody, the role of the poet, the nature of poetry, and includes her full length work 'A Notebook on William Shakespeare', as well as discussion of Chaucer, Herrick, Wordsworth, Pope and Byron amongst others.

The section on Shakespeare consists of essays on the general aspect of the plays - those great hymns to the principle and the glory of life. There are long essays on King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, and Hamlet. Miss Sitwell believes, with all humility,...

Dame Edith Sitwell died while this autobiography was in the course of printing. One of the last acts of her life was to approve the 'specimen page' from the printer. She did not live to correct her proofs and what, if any, changes she might have made is a matter for conjecture. The book, as she wrote it, must now stand as the last prose work to come from a great writer of the last century and a wise, witty and compassionate woman. 'I trust', she wrote, 'that I have hurt nobody.'

Dame Edith was much more than one of the leading English poets of her lifetime. Long, long before the age...

First published in 1948, this book may be described as Dame Edith Sitwell's personal notebook. It consists of essays on the subject of the general aspect of the plays-those great hymns to the principle and the glory of life, in which there are the same differences in nature, in matter, in light, in darkness, in movement, that we find in the universe, and in which the characters are so vast they seem each an element (Water, Hamlet; Air, Romeo and Juliet; Fire, King Lear) and which yet bear the stamp of our common humanity, made greater and more universal. There are long essays on King Lear,...

The Victorian era has been one of the most influential in shaping modern British society, and Victoria herself is a powerful symbol of the age.

This is a fascinating portrait of the queen, both before and during her reign, by one of the 20th century's most influential women writers. Making extensive use of Victoria's Letters and journal, Edith Sitwell brings alive the queen's relationships with her family and those surrounding the court. She also provides a vivid record of social conditions in Victoria's England.