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Harnessing Peacocks
''Harnessing Peacocks'' is the third novel by Mary Wesley, published in 1985 when the author was 73 years old. In 1992 it was adapted for television. Plot summary As a baby, Hebe lost her parents in an air crash; her grandparents have brought her up. When she, to her surprise, learns that she is pregnant, her grandparents and older siblings arrange an abortion to eliminate the social nuisance. Hebe overhears their plans and flees her grandparents' home for good. Twelve years later Hebe is living alone in a small town in the West Country and her son, Silas, is attending a posh private school. To make a living Hebe is working as a cook for elderly ladies and supplementing the income by sleeping with their sons and sons-in-law. In the meantime forces threaten her lucrative and well-structured life. Silas's father (unknown to Hebe) is looking for her; Silas is on vacation with the sons of one of her clients; the local hatter falls in love with Hebe; Silas hates his school; one o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WikiProject Novels
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is a Wikimedia movement affinity group for contributors with shared goals. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by '' Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the profile noted had "helped increase the number of female scientists on Wikipedia from around 1,600 to over 5,000". On Wikipedia Some Wikipedia WikiProjects are substantial enough to engage in cooperative activities with outside organizations relevant to the field at issue. For e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WikiProject Books
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is a Wikimedia movement affinity group for contributors with shared goals. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by '' Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the profile noted had "helped increase the number of female scientists on Wikipedia from around 1,600 to over 5,000". On Wikipedia Some Wikipedia WikiProjects are substantial enough to engage in cooperative activities with outside organizations relevant to the field at issue. For e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Wesley
Mary Wesley was the pen name of Mary Aline Siepmann CBE (24 June 191230 December 2002), an English novelist. During her career, she was one of Britain's most successful novelists, selling three million copies of her books, including ten bestsellers in the last twenty years of her life. Biography Birth and family Mary Aline Mynors Farmar was born in Englefield Green, Surrey, the third child of Colonel Harold Mynors Farmar, CMG, DSO, of Orchards, Bicknoller, Somerset, and his wife Violet Hyacinth, née Dalby, granddaughter of Sir William Bartlett Dalby. As a child, she had a succession of 16 foreign governesses. When she asked her mother why they kept on leaving, her mother reportedly told her: "Because none of them like you, darling." Wesley had a lifelong complicated relationship with her family and especially with her mother, who had a sharp tongue. Following the death of her father in 1961, her mother said: "I'm not going to let that lingering death happen to me. When the t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macmillan (publisher)
Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the 'Big Five' English language publishers. Founded in London in 1843 by Scottish brothers Daniel and Alexander MacMillan, the firm would soon establish itself as a leading publisher in Britain. It published two of the best-known works of Victorian era children’s literature, Lewis Carroll's ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and Rudyard Kipling's ''The Jungle Book'' (1894). Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Harold Macmillan, grandson of co-founder Daniel, was chairman of the company from 1964 until his death in December 1986. Since 1999, Macmillan has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group with offices in 41 countries worldwide and operations in more than thirty others. History Macmillan was founded in London in 1843 by Daniel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harnessing Peacocks (film)
''Harnessing Peacocks'' is a 1993 British television film directed by James Cellan Jones and starring Serena Scott Thomas, Peter Davison and John Mills. It was adapted by Andrew Davies from the 1985 novel ''Harnessing Peacocks'' by Mary Wesley. It was produced by Friday Productions in association with Meridian Broadcasting for the ITV Network, first screened on 9 May 1993 in the United Kingdom and shown in the United States of America on 28 November 1993. The film won the prestigious Golden Nymph award for Best Television Film at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival. Main cast * Serena Scott Thomas - Hebe Rutter * Peter Davison - Jim Huxtable * John Mills - Bernard Quigley * Nicholas Le Prevost - Mungo Duff * Renée Asherson - Louisa Fox * Jeremy Child - Julian Reeves * Brenda Bruce - Amy Tremayne * Tom Beasley - Silas Rutter * Richard Huw - Rory Grant * Abigail McKern - Hannah Krull * David Harewood David Harewood MBE (born 8 December 1965) is a British actor and presenter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Country
The West Country (occasionally Westcountry) is a loosely defined area of South West England, usually taken to include all, some, or parts of the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, and, less commonly, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire. "Which counties make up the West Country?", ''YouGov.co.uk'', 23 October 2019 Retrieved 22 June 2021 The West Country has a distinctive regional English dialect and accent, and is also home to the . Extent ...
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Personal Life
Personal life is the course or state of an individual's life, especially when viewed as the sum of personal choices contributing to one's personal identity. Apart from hunter-gatherers, most pre-modern peoples' time was limited by the need to meet necessities such as food and shelter through subsistence farming; leisure time was scarce. People identified with their social role in their community and engaged in activities based on necessity rather than on personal choice. Privacy in such communities was rare. The modern conception of "personal life" is an offshoot of modern Western society. Modern people tend to distinguish their work activities from their personal life and may seek work–life balance. It is a person's choices and preferences outside of work that define personal life, including one's choice of hobbies, cultural interests, manner of dress, mate, friends, and so on. In particular, what activities one engages in during leisure-time defines a person's personal life ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Cellan Jones
Alan James Gwynne Cellan Jones (13 July 1931 – 30 August 2019) was a British television and film director. From 1963, he directed over 50 television series and films, specialising in dramas. He was particularly associated with the "Classic Serial" during the golden age of BBC drama,"James Cellan Jones and the Classic Serial" ''''. November 1969; Vol. 10, Issue 6: pp. 33-44. and some of his most significant work was in televising late 19th-century and 20th-century British literary works. Two of his most ambitious and successful directorial adaptations were the miniseries '' |
Serena Scott Thomas
Serena Harriet Scott Thomas (born 21 September 1961) is an English actress and documentary producer. Her television roles include Diana, Princess of Wales in '' Diana: Her True Story'' in 1993. Her film appearances include ''The World Is Not Enough'' (1999), ''Hostage'' (2005), ''Brothel'' (2008), and ''Inherent Vice'' (2014). Early life Scott Thomas was born in Nether Compton, Dorset. Her mother, Deborah (née Hurlbatt), was brought up in Hong Kong and Africa, and studied drama before marrying her father, Lieutenant Commander Simon Scott Thomas, a pilot in the Royal Navy who died in a flying accident in 1966. Career Scott Thomas is known for her portrayal of Diana, Princess of Wales, in the television mini-series '' Diana: Her True Story'' (1993), and for playing the lead in the TV film ''Harnessing Peacocks'' (1993) and Dr. Molly Warmflash in the James Bond film ''The World Is Not Enough'' (1999). She played a villainous "watcher" in the ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' episode " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novels By Mary Wesley
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the historica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1985 British Novels
The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a new agreement on fishing rights. * January 7 – Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launches ''Sakigake'', Japan's first interplanetary spacecraft and the first deep space probe to be launched by any country other than the United States or the Soviet Union. * January 15 – Tancredo Neves is elected president of Brazil by the Congress, ending the 21-year military rule. * January 20 – Ronald Reagan is privately sworn in for a second term as President of the United States. * January 27 – The Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) is formed, in Tehran. * January 28 – The charity single record "We Are the World" is recorded by USA for Africa. February * February 4 – The border between Gibraltar and Spain reopen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novels About Orphans
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term Romance (literary fiction), "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek novel, Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
