Evelyn Waugh was born in Hampstead in 1903 and educated at Hertford College, Oxford. In 1928 he published his first novel, Decline and Fall, which was soon followed by Vile Bodies (1930), Black Mischief (1932), A Handful of Dust (1934) and Scoop (1938). During these years he also travelled extensively and converted to Catholicism. In 1939 Waugh was commissioned in the Royal Marines and later transferred to the Royal Horse Guards, experiences which informed his Sword of Honour trilogy (1952-61). His most famous novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), was written while on leave from the army. Waugh died in 1966.

Evelyn Waugh

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Teresa Lim

A cherished family photograph, taken in Hong Kong, 1935, sets Teresa Lim on a journey to uncover her family history. Through detective work, serendipity, and the kindness of strangers she was guided to the fascinating, ordinary, extraordinary life of her great-aunt Fanny, and her world of sworn spinsters, ghost husbands and the working-class feminists of 19th century south China. 
 
But to recover her great-aunt's past, we must first get to know Fanny's family, the times and circumstances in which they lived, and the momentous yet forgotten conflicts that would lead to war in Singapore and, ultimately, a long-buried family tragedy.

The Interpreter's Daughter

A remarkable true story of feminist defiance in 19th Century Singapore

Thomas Harding

Italy, August 1944. A unit of German soldiers arrives at a villa near Florence. Villa Il Focardo is home to Robert Einstein, cousin to the most famous scientist in the world, Albert Einstein – a prominent enemy of the Nazi regime. Twelve hours after arriving, the soldiers have vanished – and a family is dead. 
 
This crime – and what happened next – still haunts those who survived. In The Einstein Vendetta, Thomas Harding recounts the story of an until-now untold true crime, one that unspools to reveal Italy’s brutal wartime history – its fall to fascism, antisemitism and bitter partisanship – and a family’s search for justice.

The Einstein Vendetta

Hitler, Mussolini, and a true story of murder

Karen Farrington

In 1940, as Britain braced for war, a group of poor London girls were dispatched to a children's home in Ascot to escape the merciless Luftwaffe bombing. At Englemere Wood they came under the care of the formidable but kindly Matron Doris Bailey - the Angel of Englemere - who cherished each girl as her own. 
 
 Through first-hand accounts from the surviving girls, their stories and anecdotes shed light on life at the time - from the emotional upheaval of evacuation to adventures on the royal grounds of their new home - and the work of a woman who helped save a generation.

The Angels of Englemere Wood

The uplifting and inspiring true story of a children’s home during the Blitz

K. Iggulden

Told in a series of snapshots, A House for Two Pounds is filled with wit, warmth and joy. It follows the life of Kathleen Iggulden, and is a quietly powerful account of life on Brookdale farm. Though it is very personal, it tells the wider story of a vanished Ireland; an era of innocence, community and pure elbow grease.

A House for Two Pounds

Franci Rabinek Epstein

What are you willing to do to survive? What are you willing to endure if it means you might live? 
 
In the summer of 1942, twenty-two-year-old Franci Rabinek - designated a Jew by the Nazi racial laws - arrived at Terezin, a concentration camp and ghetto forty miles north of her home in Prague. It would be the beginning of her three-year journey from Terezin to the Czech family camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, to the slave labour camps in Hamburg, and finally Bergen Belsen. 
 
Franci, a spirited and glamorous young woman, was known among her fellow inmates as the Prague dress designer. Having endured the transportation of her parents, she never forgot her mother's parting words: 'Your only duty to us is to stay alive'. During an Auschwitz selection, Franci would spontaneously lie to Nazi officer Dr Josef Mengele, and claim to be an electrician. It was a split-second decision that would go on to endanger - and save - her life. 
 
Unpublished for 50 years, Franci's War is an astonishing account of one woman's attempt to survive. Heartbreaking and candid, Franci finds the light in her darkest years and the horrors she faces instill in her, strength and resilience to survive and to live again. She gives voice to the women prisoners in her tight-knit circle of friends. Her testimony sheds new light on the alliances, love affairs, and sexual barter that took place during the Holocaust, offering a compelling insight into the resilience and courage of ordinary people in an extraordinary situation.

Franci's War

The incredible true story of one woman's survival of the Holocaust

Tom Holland

Part of the new Ladybird Expert series, Æthelflæd is an accessible, authoritative, and enlightening introduction to the most influential woman that English history forgot. 
 
Today, few remember Æthelflæd. The daughter, sister and aunt of great kings, she was a ruler as remarkable as any of them. She planted cities, she sponsored learning, and she defeated the enemies of her people. It was on the foundations laid by Æthelflæd that a new kingdom would come to be built: a kingdom that lasts to this day. 
 
Written by historian Tom Holland, Æthelflæd puts a spotlight on this formidable leader, pulling her out of the shadowy history of the dark ages. England owes much to her founding mother. 
 
Written by the leading lights and most outstanding communicators in their fields, the Ladybird Expert books provide clear, accessible and authoritative introductions to subjects drawn from science, history and culture. 
 
For an adult readership, the Ladybird Expert series is produced in the same iconic small hardback format pioneered by the original Ladybirds. Each beautifully illustrated book features the first new illustrations produced in the original Ladybird style for nearly forty years.

Æthelflæd: A Ladybird Expert Book

England’s Forgotten Founder

Titch Cormack

War came to North Africa in June 1940. But it was over a year before a newly-formed SAS went into action. Until then, the fight belonged to an elite, top secret band of brothers called the Long Range Desert Group. 
 
They were Britain’s first special forces. 
 
Born out of a pre-war club of explorers, eccentrics and mavericks, the LRDG operated alone behind enemy lines, performing astonishing feats of navigation, endurance and survival, and paved the way for the SAS. 
 
Drawing on his own decade’s service with UK Special Forces, Titch Cormack brings to life the action-packed but little-known story of Britain’s original rogue heroes.

SAS 101

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