In celebration of the Royal Horticultural Society's bicentenary, this diary and address book set focuses on some of the many gifts and bequests, both great and small, to the Society's drawings collection. The selection shown here includes illustrations by George Dionysis Ehret (1708-70), William Hooker (1779-1832), and Lilian Snelling (1879-1972).
A profound encounter with the hyperreality of our time of global upheaval, violence, and pandemic. Tom Sleigh’s poems are skeptical of the inevitability of our fate, but in this brilliant new collection, they are charged with a powerful sense of premonition, as if the future is unfolding before us, demanding something greater than the self. Justice is a prevailing force, even while the poems are fully cognizant of the refugee crisis, war, famine, and the brutal reality of a crowded hospital morgue. The King’s Touch collides the world of fact and the world of mystery with a resolutely secular register. The title poem refers to the once-held belief that the king, as a divine representative, is imbued with the power of healing touch. Sleigh turns this encounter between illness and human contact toward his own chronic blood disease and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its mounting death tolls. One poem asks, “isn’t it true that no matter how long you / wear them, masks don’t grieve, only faces do?” In this essential new work, Sleigh shows how the language of poetry itself can revive and recuperate a sense of a future under the conditions of violence, social unrest, and global anxiety about the fate of the planet.
This sweeping book explores the profound shift in the way European kings and queens were regarded by their subjects between the Reformation and the Enlightenment. Once viewed as godlike beings, by 1715 monarchs had come to represent the human, visible side of the rational state. The author offers new insights into the relations between kings and their subjects and the interplay between monarchy and religion.
Winner of The HWA Gold Crown 2020 From the No.1 bestselling author of The Ashes of London and The Fire Court comes the next book in the phenomenally successful series following James Marwood at the time of King Charles II.
First published in English in 1973, The Royal Touch explores the supernatural character that was long attributed to royal power. Throughout history, both France and England claimed to hold kings with healing powers who, by their touch, could cure people from all strands of society from illness and disease. Indeed, the idea of royalty as something miraculous and sacred was common to the whole of Western Europe. Using the work of both professional scholars and of doctors, this work stands as a contribution to the political history of Europe.
Gold is wealth. Wealth is power. Power is a curse. This captivating fantasy adventure—the untold story of the daughter King Midas turned to gold—will dazzle you with the kind of action, adventure, twists, turns, and a bit of romance to make any fan of magic and mythology greedy for more. After King Midas’s gift—or curse—almost killed his daughter, he relinquished The Touch forever. Ten years later, Princess Kora still bears the consequences of her father’s wish: her skin shines golden, rumors follow her everywhere she goes, and she harbors secret powers that are getting harder to hide. Kora spends her days concealed behind gloves and veils. It isn’t until a charming duke arrives that Kora believes she could indeed be loved. But their courtship is disrupted when a thief steals treasures her father needs to survive. Thanks to Kora’s unique ability to sense gold, she sails off on her quest to find the missing items. Magic, mythology, fantasy, and pirate adventures charge through every page as Kora learns that not everything is what it seems—not her companions, not the thieves, and not even Kora herself. A Touch of Gold: Is told from the perspective of Kora, King Midas’s daughter and a strong female protagonist Is a clean fantasy adventure, perfect for fans of the #1 New York Times bestselling books, The Wrath & the Dawn and Cinder Is an enchanting and captivating fantasy adventure/fairy tale retelling Features a beautifully decorated cover Will have strong appeal to readers ages 13 & up
A mythical family saga steeped in the legends of the sea, The Lobster Kings is a "powerhouse of a novel" (Ben Fountain). The Kings family has lived on Loosewood Island for three hundred years. Now, Woody Kings, the leader of the island's lobster fishing community and the family patriarch, teeters on the throne, and Cordelia, the oldest of Woody's three daughters, stands to inherit the crown. To do so, however, she must defend her island from meth dealers from the mainland, while navigating sibling rivalry and the vulnerable nature of her own heart when she falls in love with her sternman.
Michelangelo’s adventure in Constantinople, from the “mesmerizing” (New Yorker) and “masterful” (Washington Post) author of Compass In 1506, Michelangelo—a young but already renowned sculptor—is invited by the sultan of Constantinople to design a bridge over the Golden Horn. The sultan has offered, along with an enormous payment, the promise of immortality, since Leonardo da Vinci’s design was rejected: “You will surpass him in glory if you accept, for you will succeed where he has failed, and you will give the world a monument without equal.” Michelangelo, after some hesitation, flees Rome and an irritated Pope Julius II—whose commission he leaves unfinished—and arrives in Constantinople for this truly epic project. Once there, he explores the beauty and wonder of the Ottoman Empire, sketching and describing his impressions along the way, as he struggles to create what could be his greatest architectural masterwork. Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants—constructed from real historical fragments—is a thrilling page-turner about why stories are told, why bridges are built, and how seemingly unmatched fragments, seen from the opposite sides of civilization, can mirror one another.
When a young boy moves from his home in Italy to Wales, the only thing that cheers him up are the racing pigeons that Mr. Evans keeps in a loft behind his house.