Juliet Gardiner – författare

"I don't regret for a single moment having lived for pleasure. I did it to the full, as one should do anything one does. I lived on honeycomb." Oscar WildeAlthough it is over 120 years since his infamous trial for indecency, Oscar Wilde has never held greater fascination for us. This packed illustrated biography tells the life of Oscar Wilde through his own words – private letters, poems, plays, stories and legendary witticisms. It includes his relationships with key artists and writers of the time, including John Ruskin, Charles Ricketts, and Lillie Langtry.It is illustrated throughout with paintings, engravings, contemporary photographs, cartoons and caricatures of Wilde and his social circle. With illustrations and paintings by Aubrey Beardsley, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, James Whistler and Max Beerbohm, it is a beautiful evocation of the glittering fin de siecle word by its most fascinating wordsmith and aesthete.The book details Wilde's ruin after the trial and its outcome. The profundity of his writing from prison and exile form an epitaph, not only to his own life, but also for the era that carelessly delighted in it.

The story both of the real world of the Brontës at Haworth Parsonage, their home on the edge of the lonely Yorkshire moors, and of the imaginary worlds they spun for themselves in their novels and poetry.Wherever possible, their story is told using their own words – the letters they wrote to each other, Emily and Anne's secret diaries, and Charlotte's exchanges with luminaries of literary England – or those closest to them, such as their brother Branwell, their father Patrick Brontë, and their novelist friend Mrs Gaskell. The Brontës sketched and painted their worlds too, in delicate ink washes and watercolours of family and friends, animals and the English moors. These pictures illuminate the text as do the tiny drawings the Brontë children made to illustrate their imaginary worlds. In addition, there are facsimiles of their letters and diaries, paintings by artists of the day, and pictures of household life. This beautifully illustrated book offers a unique and privileged view of the real lives of three women, writers and sisters.

Juliet Gardiner's critically acclaimed book - the first in a generation to tell the people's story of the Second World War - offers a compelling and comprehensive account of the pervasiveness of war on the Home Front. The book has been commended for its inclusion of many under-described aspects of the Home Front, and alongside familiar stories of food shortages, evacuation and the arrival of the GIs, are stories of Conscientious Objectors, persecuted Italians living in Britain and Lumber Jills working in the New Forest. Drawing on a multitude of sources, many previously unpublished, she tells the story of those six gruelling years in voices from the Orkney Islands to Cornwall, from the Houses of Parliament to the Nottinghamshire mines.

In a series of powerful accounts drawn from diaries, letters, sound archives and interviews recorded during the period of devastation, discovery and transformation that make the blitz such an outstanding event in Britain's recent past, "The Blitz" brings to life the intense experiences, as they happened all over Britain.The blitz proved to be a highly effective laboratory constructed out of necessity, and intense forcing house for change.Yet, compared to other great events of the Second World War – Dunkirk, D – Day, and even VE Day, the Blitz remains curiously unexamined.A type of cleansing resulted from it. It soon became evident that many of the attitudes in society were outdated.The most obvious inequalities between British society also became clear, and yet with everyone sharing the same devastation, these differences slowly began to lose their importance.As well as a social laboratory, the Blitz was a medical one too. Overworked doctors and scientists were forced to experiment and improvise. It was during the Blitz that the embryonic blood transfusion service grew to become a nation-wide institution. Psychoanalysis took on a new meaning too: the enemy was now external, someone different from "us".It gave coherence to artists and writers at the time such as Cecil Beaton.The Blitz is arranged as a series of chronological chapters, each focusing on an aspect of key importance.The perspective will primarily be that of those who had actual experience of those tumultuous months, when no one knew when or if the bombings would stop.Above all, it will be recounted in the words of the many "ordinary people" across Britain who were caught up in the Blitz, their stories, entries that are taken from the journals that they kept during this difficult time and also interviews with those who are still alive today.

Acclaimed author of 'Wartime', Juliet Gardiner, brings to life the long neglected decade of the twentieth century – the 1930s.J.B. Priestley famously described the 'three Englands' he saw in the 1930s: Old England, nineteenth-century England and the new, post-war England. Thirties Britain was, indeed, a land of contrasts, at once a nation rendered hopeless by the Depression, unemployment and international tensions, yet also a place of complacent suburban home-owners with a baby Austin in every garage.Now Juliet Gardiner, acclaimed author of the award-winning Wartime, provides a fresh perspective on that restless, uncertain, ambitious decade, bringing the complex experience of thirties Britain alive through newspapers, magazines, memoirs, letters and diaries.Gardiner captures the essence of a people part-mesmerised by 'modernism' in architecture, art and the proliferation of 'dream palaces', by the cult of fitness and fresh air, the obsession with speed, the growth and regimentation of leisure, the democratisation of the countryside, the celebration of elegance, glamour and sensation. Yet, at the same time, this was a nation imbued with a pervasive awareness of loss – of Britain's influence in the world, of accepted political, social and cultural signposts, and finally of peace itself.

From the author of ‘Wartime’ comes an outstanding history of the most sustained onslaught ever endured by Britain's civilian population – the Blitz.September 1940 marked the beginning of Nazi Germany's aerial attack on civilian Britain. Lasting eight months, the Blitz was the form of warfare that had been predicted throughout the 1930s, and that the British people had feared since Neville Chamberlain's declaration that Britain was at war. Images of Britain’s devastated cities are among the most iconic of the Second World War.Yet compared with other great moments of that war – Dunkirk, the North African campaign, D-Day – the Blitz remains curiously unexamined. Apart from fragmentary accounts and local records, there is little in the way of a comprehensive account of the experience that so many British civilians went through – as well as the social, political and cultural implications of the bombardment. Designed to break the morale of the British population, the nightly bombings certainly did devastate. But, as Juliet Gardiner shows in this hugely important book, they also served to galvanise the nation; from those terrifying eight months, a new determination amongst people and politicians steadily emerged.Revealing, original and beautifully written, ‘The Blitz’ is a much-needed exploration of one of the most important moments in Second World War history.

From the author of ‘Wartime’ and ‘The Thirties’comes an outstanding history of the most prolonged and devastating attack ever endured by Britain''s civilian population – the Blitz.September 1940 marked the beginning of Nazi Germany''s sustained attack on civilian Britain. Lasting eight months, the Blitz was a new and terrible form of warfare that had been predicted throughout the 1930s, widely feared since Neville Chamberlain''s declaration that Britain was at war.Yet, compared with other great events of that war – Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, D-Day – the Blitz remains curiously overlooked; while the London Blitz has been much documented, there exists very little in the way of a comprehensive account of the Blitz experience as a whole – or of its social, political and cultural implications.In her new book, critically acclaimed historian Juliet Gardiner finally gives the Blitz the historical attention it deserves. Exploring this national story, she charts the impact of the nightly bombings on the entire country. And while loss and devastation affected the whole of Britain, the attacks also served to galvanise the nation: in the face of the terrifying Nazi onslaught, a new determination steadily emerged.Revealing, original and beautifully written, The Blitz is a much-needed re-examination of one of the most important aspects of Second World War history.

‘An accomplished and intensely evocative memoir … A journey of courage and determination … Joining the Dots … will become in time an integral part of our understanding of postwar Britain’ Daniel Kynaston, Books of the Year, ObserverHow has Britain changed – politically, economically, socially and culturally – in the postwar era? Both lyrical and personal, social historian Juliet Gardiner’s memoir Joining the Dots is the accessible and empowering living history of a mid-twentieth-century woman who grew into a world so different from the one she was born into. The book is also a wider study of class, sexual choice, motherhood and marriage, feminism, family planning and professional ambition. An essential read for anyone interested in gender equality and modern history.

‘An accomplished and intensely evocative memoir … A journey of courage and determination … Joining the Dots … will become in time an integral part of our understanding of postwar Britain’ Daniel Kynaston, Books of the Year, Observer How has Britain changed – politically, economically, socially and culturally – in the postwar era? Both lyrical and personal, social historian Juliet Gardiner’s memoir Joining the Dots is the accessible and empowering living history of a mid-twentieth-century woman who grew into a world so different from the one she was born into. The book is also a wider study of class, sexual choice, motherhood and marriage, feminism, family planning and professional ambition. An essential read for anyone interested in gender equality and modern history.

In 1985, the well-known monthly magazine, History Today, ran a series of articles by distinguished contributors on different branches of history and the problems involved for historians in studying, researching and writing in these areas of history. A selection of these essays now appears in book form, edited by Juliet Gardiner, the former editor of History Today.

Juliet Gardiner''s critically acclaimed book - the first in a generation to tell the people''s story of the Second World War - offers a compelling and comprehensive account of the pervasiveness of war on the Home Front. The book has been commended for its inclusion of many under-described aspects of the Home Front, and alongside familiar stories of food shortages, evacuation and the arrival of the GIs, are stories of Conscientious Objectors, persecuted Italians living in Britain and Lumber Jills working in the New Forest. Drawing on a multitude of sources, many previously unpublished, she tells the story of those six gruelling years in voices from the Orkney Islands to Cornwall, from the Houses of Parliament to the Nottinghamshire mines.