Gillian Tindall begon haar carrière als een prijswinnende romanschrijfster en heeft, hoewel ze fictie is blijven publiceren, ook een indrukwekkende niche veroverd in eigenzinnige non-fictie die plaatsen briljant oproept. Tindall staat bekend om de kwaliteit van haar schrijven en de nauwgezetheid van haar onderzoek, en is een meester in miniaturistische geschiedschrijving, waarbij ze kleine verhalen met een aanzienlijke impact onderzoekt.
When Gillian found a cache of letters in a deserted house in France, recently emptied of 150 years of a family's possessions, she uncovered the obscure & moving life of Celestine Chaumette. This is a recreation of the vanished world of a French village.
As read on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week 'A genius for a certain kind of social history that, in shining a light on one small place, illuminates a huge amount' Sunday TelegraphA toy train.
This is an historical study of Bombay, the chief city of Western India, which focuses on the architecture and on the British roots of the metropolis, the people who built and ran the city as well as the importance of trade.
Just across the River Thames from St Paul's Cathedral stands an old and elegant house. they have seen the countrified lanes of London's marshy south bank give way to a network of wharves, workshops and tenements - and then seen these, too, become dust and empty air.
Seven marriage proposals written to Celestine in the early 1860s, and carefully preserved by her, offer a glimpse of rural nineteenth century French life
Born into a poor family in the rocky heart of France in the year of Waterloo, tramping hundreds of miles to Paris to find work at the age of fourteen, Martin Nadaud grew up to become a stone mason, a revolutionary and a Member of Parliament. After the failure of the 1848 revolution, he was forced to flee to a long and lonely exile in England, seeking work on the building sites of Victorian London before becoming a schoolmaster in Wimbledon under an assumed name. He made his final triumphant return to his homeland in 1870, as modern France was created in turmoil. Publicly, it was a life finally crowned with success. But on a private level Nadaud suffered griefs and losses that left their mark. With access to family letters and personal papers that have lain unrevealed in France for the last hundred years, Gillian Tindall has constructed a moving and compelling picture of a working man against his colourful times.
Biografie velkého světového umělce Václava Hollara. Václav Hollar byl ve své době jedním z Čechů, kteří svým uměním oslnili svět. I po staletí žasneme nad dědictvím, které nám zanechal ve svých neuvěřitelně podrobných a realistických rytinách. Bohužel velkou část života strávil v zahraničí, a tak sice zachytil Londýn před velkým požárem v roce 1666, ale kromě několika raných plánů Prahy je většina motivů jeho díla jiná než česká. V každém případě jde o nepřehlédnutelnou osobnost světového umění.
