Lucinda Hawksley – författare

Winner: Best Trade Illustrated Book, British Book Design & Production Awards 2017‘As to the arsenic scare a greater folly it is hardly possible to imagine: the doctors were bitten as people were bitten by the witch fever.’ — William Morris on toxic wallpapers, 1885. Bitten by Witch Fever presents facsimile samples of 275 of the most sumptuous wallpaper designs ever created by designers and printers of the age, including Christopher Dresser and Morris & Co. For the first time in their history, every one of the samples shown has been laboratory tested and found to contain arsenic. Interleaved with the wallpaper sections, evocative commentary guides you through the incredible story of the manufacture, uses and effects of arsenic, and presents the heated public debate surrounding the use of deadly pigments in the sublime wallpapers of a newly industrialized world.Chosen by Emma Roberts and Karah Preiss for their Belletrist Book Club's Gift Guide.

What Makes Great Art showcases a selection of 80 outstanding paintings and sculptures from around the world and throughout time, assessing just what it is that makes them so great.Why do some artworks stand out head and shoulders above others? What makes a painting truly great, and secures its artistic legacy for centuries after its creation?Some owe their greatness to composition of colour, others offer profound insights into their human subjects, and some convey their message particularly effectively.Exceptional art somehow satisfies at a deeper level than the rest, and this truly insightful and deeply researched work examinss exactly how 80 of the most significant works of art have persevered, and what makes us come back to them time and time again.Andy Prankhurst’s succinct, appraisive text will open your eyes to the unique defining qualities of these key works, enabling you to appreciate the groundbreaking talents of every age.An indispensible book for anyone who wants to understand how and why art continues to fascinate us, this book is a comprehensive guide to these masterpieces and what exactly makes them great.

Intrigue, scandal, and secrets abound in this lush royal biography penned by the great-great-great granddaughter of Charles Dickens.

From childhood, Charles Dickens was fascinated by tales from other countries and other cultures and he longed to see the world. In Dickens and Travel, Lucinda Hawksley looks at the journeys made by her great great great grandfather. Dickens is usually perceived as a London author, yet in the 1840s, he whisked his family away to live in Italy for year, and some years later took up residence in Switzerland and then Paris. He travelled widely in Europe, long before the arrival of high-speed rail, toured America (twice) and Canada and, before his untimely death, was planning a tour of Australia. Dickens and Travel enters into the world of the Victorian traveller and looks at how Dickens’s journeys affected his writing.

Dickens and Christmas is an exploration of the 19th-century phenomenon that became the Christmas we know and love today -and of the writer who changed, forever, the ways in which it is celebrated. Charles Dickens was born in an age of great social change. He survived childhood poverty to become the most adored and influential man of his time. Throughout his life, he campaigned tirelessly for better social conditions, including by his most famous work, A Christmas Carol. He wrote this novella specifically to strike a sledgehammer blow on behalf of the poor man's child , and it began the Victorians' obsession with Christmas.This new book, written by one of his direct descendants, explores not only Dickens's most famous work, but also his all-too-often overlooked other Christmas novellas. It takes the readers through the seasonal short stories he wrote, for both adults and children, includes much-loved festive excerpts from his novels, uses contemporary newspaper clippings, and looks at Christmas writings by Dickens' contemporaries. To give an even more personal insight, readers can discover how the Dickens family itself celebrated Christmas, through the eyes of Dickens's unfinished autobiography, family letters, and his children's memoirs.In Victorian Britain, the celebration of Christmas lasted for 12 days, ending on 6 January, or Twelfth Night. Through Dickens and Christmas, readers will come to know what it would have been like to celebrate Christmas in 1812, the year in which Dickens was born. They will journey through the Christmases Dickens enjoyed as a child and a young adult, through to the ways in which he and his family celebrated the festive season at the height of his fame. It also explores the ways in which his works have gone on to influence how the festive season is celebrated around the globe.

Elizabeth Revealed is a lively and affectionate celebration of The Queen's long and eventful life. This gorgeously illustrated book blends personal and public, frivolous and factual in a tribute to an extraordinary woman and the sweeping social changes she has lived through. The enjoyable '500 Facts' format highlights surprising aspects of The Queen's intimate life, the good and the bad years. It offers illuminating glimpses into a changing monarchy and royal family life as an elegant young princess developed into the most famous woman in the world.

Over 2,000 years of history seen through the eyes of 50 extraordinary women. Was Jane Austen a fan of her own work? What did Harriet Tubman want to tell Abraham Lincoln? And how did Greta Thunberg respond to her critics? This carefully curated selection of correspondence on politics, literature, art, entertainment, activism and science provides insight into the personal and professional lives of some of history's most influential names. Each entry includes images and transcripts of the letters themselves along with a biography by celebrated historian Lucinda Hawksley exploring the lives and writings of each woman.Letters of Great Women brings together 50 key female voices on the most significant moments in history, and the everyday joys, sorrows and struggles of women's lives.

'A wonderful, inspiring story told with scholarship, passion and wit' – Miriam Margolyes'A must-read' – Independent on SundayWith an introduction by Dr Helen Pankhurst.An illuminating and riveting exploration of the women's movement in Britain, and the extraordinary women behind it.From the passing of the Marriage and Divorce Act in 1857 to all women attaining the vote in 1928, the struggle for suffrage in the United Kingdom was to be fought using the weapons of intellect, searing rhetoric, and violence in the streets. Ordinary women rose up to defy the roles prescribed by their society to become heroes in the battle for equality.Using anecdotes and accounts by both famous and hitherto lesser-known suffragettes and suffragists, March, Women, March explores how the voices of women came to be heard throughout the land in the pursuit of equal voting rights for all women. Lucinda Hawksley brings the main protagonists of the women's movement to life, sharing diary extracts and letters that show the true voices of these women, while their portrayals in literature and art – as well as the media reports of the day – show just how much of an impact these trailblazers made.'An accessible and engaging guide to the original women's movement' – Daily Telegraph

The supermodel did not arrive when Twiggy first donned false eyelashes; the concept began more than 100 years previously, with a young artists' model whose face captivated a generation.Saved from the drudgery of a working-class existence by a young Pre-Raphaelite artist, Lizzie Siddal rose to become one of the most famous faces in Victorian Britain and a pivotal figure of London's artistic world, until tragically ending her young life in a laudanum-soaked suicide in 1862. In the twenty-first century, even those who do not know her name always recognise her face: she is Millais's doomed Ophelia and Rossetti's beatified Beatrice.With many parallels in the modern-day world of art and fashion, this biography takes Lizzie from the background of Dante Rossetti's life and, finally, brings her to the forefront of her own.

‘Satisfyingly replete with eye-popping stories’ ObserverWhat was so dangerous about Queen Victoria’s artistic tempestuous sixth child, Princess Louise?When Lucinda Hawksley started to investigate, often thwarted by inexplicable secrecy, she discovered a fascinating woman, modern before her time, whose story has been shielded f from public view for years.Louise was a sculptor and painter, friend to the Pre-Raphaelites and a keen member of the Aesthetic movement. The most feisty of the Victorian princesses, she kicked against her mother’s controlling nature and remained fiercely loyal to her brothers – especially the sickly Leopold and the much-maligned Bertie. She sought out other unconventional women, including Josephine Butler and George Eliot, and campaigned for education and health reform and for the rights of women. She battled with her indomitable mother for permission to practice the ‘masculine’ art of sculpture and go to art college – and in doing so became the first British princess to attend a public school.The rumours of Louise’s colourful love life persist even today, with hints of love affairs dating as far back as her teenage years, and notable scandals included entanglements with her sculpting tutor Joseph Edgar Boehm and possibly even her sister Princess Beatrice’s handsome husband, Liko. True to rebellious form, she refused all royal suitors and became the first member of the royal family to marry a commoner since the sixteenth century. Spirited and lively, The Mystery of Princess Louise is richly packed with arguments, intrigues, scandals and secrets, and is a vivid portrait of a princess desperate to escape her inheritance.