The Reverend Percy Dearmer MA (Oxon), DD, (1867-1936) was an English priest and liturgist best known as the author of The Parson's Handbook, a liturgical manual. A lifelong socialist, he was an early advocate of the ordination of women to public ministry but not to the priesthood, and very concerned with social justice. He had a strong influence on the music of the church and, with Ralph Vaughan Williams and Martin Shaw, is credited with the revival and spread of traditional and medieval English musical forms. In 1901, after serving four curacies, Dearmer was appointed the third vicar of London church St. Mary-the-Virgin, Primrose Hill, where he remained until 1915. His works include: Christian Socialism and Practical Christianity (1897), The English Liturgy (1903), The English Hymnal (1906), Socialism and Religion (1908), The Church and Social Questions (1910) and Reunion and Rome (1911).
In the year 937, the new king of England, a grandson of Alfred the Great, readies himself to go to war in the north. His dream of a united kingdom of all England will stand or fall on one field—on the passage of a single day. At his side is the priest Dunstan of Glastonbury, full of ambition and wit (perhaps enough to damn his soul). His talents will take him from the villages of Wessex to the royal court, to the hills of Rome—from exile to exaltation. Through Dunstan’s vision, by his guiding hand, England will either come together as one great country or fall back into anarchy and misrule . . . From one of our finest historical writers, The Abbott’s Tale is an intimate portrait of a priest and performer, a visionary, a traitor and confessor to kings—the man who can change the fate of England.
The first major biography of Don Dunstan, one of the few state premiers to stride the national stage and make a lasting mark on Australian life. Don Dunstan was one of the most significant political figures of twentieth-century Australia. As Premier of South Australia, he blazed a trail of reform. But his influence reached far beyond his home state. He was seen as the architect of a new kind of Australian society, and his decade in office marked a golden age. This is the first comprehensive biography of a larger than life figure. Angela Woollacott recounts how he battled Adelaide's conservative establishment to win office for Labor, and then pioneered Aboriginal land rights, abolished the death penalty, supported women's rights, relaxed censorship and drinking laws and decriminalised homosexuality. He worked against the White Australia Policy, and was an ardent supporter of the arts and food. Although he was much loved by the public, Dunstan's career was marked by controversy and vilification, with scandal surrounding his personal relationships. Dunstan's life story helps us to appreciate just what a watershed era the 1960s and 1970s were in Australia, and to see how one small state could, for a time, lead a nation. 'A fitting tribute' - Penny Wong 'Whitlam and Dunstan were the Washington and Jefferson of modern Australian Labor politics.' - Mike Rann 'Angela Woollacott's biography captures what was so special about him.' - Maggie Beer
The biographical and historical works of Eadmer, secretary of Saint Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, look back to the Anglo-Saxon past and reflect contemporary realities of Norman society. The Lives of Saints Oda, Dunstan and Oswald, newly edited here with a modern English translation, provide many insights into the wider political history of the pre- and post-Conquest periods, as well as important evidence for the cults of the saints in Canterbury andWorcester.
The first book in Robertson Davies's acclaimed The Deptford Trilogy, with a new foreword by Kelly Link Ramsay is a man twice born, a man who has returned from the hell of the battle-grave at Passchendaele in World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross and destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide. As Ramsay tells his story, it begins to seem that from boyhood, he has exerted a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious, influence on those around him. His apparently innocent involvement in such innocuous events as the throwing of a snowball or the teaching of card tricks to a small boy in the end prove neither innocent nor innocuous. Fifth Business stands alone as a remarkable story told by a rational man who discovers that the marvelous is only another aspect of the real. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
A charming and inspiring book of 365 things to do in London. Beautifully illustrated with bitesize entries ranging from the well-known to the quirky, this is the perfect gift for anyone wanting to discover all of the gems London has to offer... 'One thing to do every day that'll stop you getting tired of the big smoke.' -- The Guardian 'A great way to explore London!' -- ***** Reader review 'Great fun and great information' -- ***** Reader review 'Great book to dip into. Always find something new to do/somewhere new to go' -- ***** Reader review 'A brilliant book with fascinating ideas to do around the city' -- ***** Reader review ****************************************************************************************************** As the late great Samuel Johnson sagely observed, 'When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.' When author Tom Jones found himself doing the same things week in, week out while living in England's treasured capital, he decided to heed Johnson's words and seek out a thing to do each day in London to make him fall back in love with the city. Here, in Tired of London, Tired of Life, Tom shares the fun, diverting and imaginative things that you can do to keep yourself amused in London. With seasonally appropriate suggestions for each day of the year, you can explore East London by canoe, search for Fagin's lair in Clerkenwell, play petanque in Southwark, seek out Aphrodite in the British Museum on Valentine's Day and enjoy a host of unusual ways to enjoy the capital. So grab your A-Z and start discovering a whole other side to this majestic city!
Scholar, ecclesiastic, teacher and poet of the eighth century, Alcuin was a person of deep Christian faith, tenacious in his loyalty to orthodox Catholic theology. He had a seminal influence upon his own generation and those that came after him. Althoughhe remained a Northumbrian Christian at heart, the part of his life about which most is known was spent on the Continent. He never lost contact with his homeland; but his most significant and lasting work was evidently accomplished in Europe and his influence on the early medieval Western Church was an abiding one. This book examines his life and career in England and on the continent; it also considers his legacy as a churchman and a leading political figure. This volume prefigures a forthcoming work onAlcuin's intellectual legacy, 'Alcuin : A Study of his Theology' (due for release, April 2013). This rich study is intended for the general reader as well as for those studying, teaching or researching this period of early medieval history and theology in schools and universities.
Dunstan Thompson was an American poet of great promise who burst onto the Anglo-American literary scene during World War II. In the words of one contemporary, Thompson was one of the rising "stars of modern poetry," a writer who might one day join the pantheon of poets like Hart Crane, W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, and Dylan Thomas. And yet Thompson more or less disappeared from public view by the early 1950s. After publishing two volumes of poetry, a travel book, and a novel, Thompson had only a few scattered magazine publications until his death. A posthumous volume was privately printed in England, but the circulation was small. Here at Last is Love: Selected Poems is the definitive, authorized selection of Thompson's best work, revealing to a wider public the literary vision of a "lost master." The introduction by editor Gregory Wolfe offers the first extended narrative in print relating Thompson's complex personal story. The afterword by distinguished poet and critic Dana Gioia provides a thorough--and just--assessment of his poetic achievement. Thompson's early poetry was not only technically innovative, but saturated with the language and the drama of gay experience during World War II. Yet just a few years after the war, Thompson returned to the Catholic faith of his childhood, only to find that his new poetic voice was out of sync with the times. In spite of the difficulties he faced in his later years, Thompson did not give up writing poetry, continuing to produce quality work. After his reconversion, the poetry shifted in tone and form from a lush romanticism to an urbane classicism. The later work covers a wide range of subjects, from studies of historical figures to devotional lyrics. This volume will not only stir up the debate about Thompson's sexual and religious passions, but also help complete the history of twentieth-century Anglo-American poetry, finally making his work available to scholars and lovers of poetry everywhere.
