Exploring the Blackwell Collections (publishing and bookselling archives), Rita Ricketts discovered diverse characters associated with this world-famous company, between 1830 and 1940. There is a tailor's son saving souls, a reluctant radical, a hamm...

W. Heath Robinson is best known for his hilarious drawings of zany contraptions, though his work ranged across a wide variety of topics covering many aspects of British life in the decades following the First World War. Starting out as a watercolour...

W. Heath Robinson is best known for his hilarious drawings of zany contraptions, though his work ranged across a wide variety of topics covering many aspects of British life in the decades following the First World War. Starting out as a watercolour...

First published in 1920, "How to Dine in Style" opens a window onto the golden age of elegant dining, where the basic function of ingesting nourishment was elevated to a high social art, attended by intricate details and elaborate ritual. Starched li...

Established in 1968, John Fuller's Sycamore Press published some of the most influential and critically acclaimed writers of the past half-century. In addition to publishing established authors, such as W. H. Auden, Philip Larkin, and Peter Porter, t...

Presidents, Prime Ministers, Chancellors and Secretary Generals of totalitarian states in the twentieth century have been highly conscious of the need to present a national image suited to the new political culture they sought to inculcate. In these...

A century ago, hereditary rulers governed the great world powers. The royal houses of Europe, Africa and Asia once ruled continents and the dominions beyond the seas. Today, just ten monarchs still reign in Europe, their powers significantly curbed....

Between 1945 and 1961, an estimated 2.5 million people fled East Germany in search of the political and economic freedom offered by West Germany. To thwart this tide of defections, on the morning of 13th August 1961, hundreds of East German troops be...

The twentieth century has seen perhaps more political upheaval and change than any other period. At the turn of the century, Queen Victoria still reigned, the British Empire was at its height and the old world order was firmly in place. One hundred y...

Of all the rules governing sport, the laws of cricket are among the oldest. The first written rules of 1744 survive uniquely on the border of a piece of linen at the MCC Museum of Cricket. They were drawn up by certain "Noblemen and Gentlemen" at a t...