Lucy Lethbridge is de auteur van talrijke boeken en schrijft ook voor vooraanstaande Britse kranten en literaire tijdschriften. Haar schrijven kenmerkt zich door scherp inzicht in kunst en cultuur. Ze onderzoekt de ingewikkelde relaties tussen kunstwerken en hun sociale context. Haar werk nodigt lezers uit tot diepere beschouwing van de kunstwereld.
Born into a wealthy family, Florence Nightingale could have lived a life of leisure and luxury. Instead she longed to be a nurse. In 1830, that was the last thing a rich girl could do - but Florence was no ordinary girl. Ages 7-11.
A collection of true stories of piracy, from the first pirates of the Ancient World to the Golden Age of Piracy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Contains true life stories of hardship and brutality, bringing to life the flamboyant characters of the most famous captains and the men who set out to capture them. Black and white line drawings.
Servants: A Downstairs View of Twentieth-century Britain is the social history of the last century through the eyes of those who served. From the butler, the footman, the maid and the cook of 1900 to the au pairs, cleaners and childminders who took their place seventy years later, a previously unheard class offers a fresh perspective on a dramatic century. Here, the voices of servants and domestic staff, largely ignored by history, are at last brought to life: their daily household routines, attitudes towards their employers, and to each other, throw into sharp and intimate relief the period of feverish social change through which they lived. Sweeping in its scope, extensively researched and brilliantly observed,Servants is an original and fascinating portrait of twentieth-century Britain; an authoritative history that will change and challenge the way we look at society.
"Daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron, Ada Lovelace was a child prodigy. Brilliant at maths, she read numbers like most people read words. In 1834 she came to the attention of Charles Babbage, a scientist and techno-whizz who had just built an amazing new 'Thinking Machine'. Ada and Mr Babbage made a perfect partnership, which produced the most important invention of the modern world - the computer!"--Back cover. Suggested level: primary, intermediate
"'It is the paramount wish of every English heart, ever addicted to vagabondizing, to hasten to the Continent -' In 1815 the Battle of Waterloo brought to an end the Napoleonic Wars and the European continent opened up once again to British tourists. The nineteenth century was to be an age driven by steam technology, mass-industrialisation and movement, and, in the footsteps of the Grand Tourists a hundred years earlier, the British middle-classes flocked to Europe to see the sights. In Tourists, the voices of these travellers puzzled, shocked, delighted and amazed are brought vividly to life. From the discomfort of the stagecoach to the 'self-contained pleasure palace' of the beach resort, Lucy Lethbridge brilliantly examines two centuries of tourists' experience. Among a range of disparate characters, we meet the commercial titans of Victorian tourism, Albert Smith, Henry Gaze and Thomas Cook, as well as their successor, Vladimir Raitz, the creator of the modern beach holiday. The growth of popular tourism introduced new markets in guidebooks, souvenirs, cuisine and health cures. It smoothed over class differences but also exacerbated them. It destroyed traditional cultures while at the same time preserving them. From portable cameras to postcards and suntans, Tourists explores how tourism has reflected changing attitudes to modernity and how, from the grand hotel to the campsite, the foreign holiday exposes deep fears, hopes and even longings for home"--Publisher's description