Sir James Somerville (1882-1949) was one of the great influences on the 20th-century navy, both as a commander of fleets and a pioneer of radio and radar. The Admiral's extensive correspondence, diaries and reports are deposited in the Churchill Archives Centre at Cambridge. These edited selections reveal much of the background about major naval operations in the Second World War. The loneliness of high command is clearly revealed in these highly personal documents, almost 500 of which are reproduced in the book. In particular they show Somerville's frequent disagreements with Churchill - a...

Following America's entry into World War Two, there was a necessity for the Royal Navy to strengthen co-operation with the United States Navy. Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham's brief term as head of the British Admiralty Delegation in Washington was to endear him to the Americans so much so that they proposed him as Allied Naval Commander of the Expeditionary Force which was to invade North Africa in November 1942. In October 1943, Cunningham was summoned to replace the dying Pound as First Sea Lord, a position he held until his retirement from active service in June 1946. In that time he...

Displaced to Italy by their politics and morals, Byron and Shelley wrote, between 1816 and 1823, a series of closet dramas that the author reveals as being deeply embedded in contemporary radical culture. Why did they write dramas in Italy that were to be published in England but not to be produced theatrically? Why do these dramas invoke and apparently oppose textual and theatrical versions of themselves? In answering these questions, this book addresses other questions about the historical invention of English literature, the relation between literature and drama, and the relation between...