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Walter Scott Prize
The Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction is a British literary award founded in 2010.Walter Scott Prize , bordersbookfestival.org. Retrieved April 2012. At £25,000, it is one of the largest literary awards in the UK. The award was created by the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, whose ancestors were closely linked to Scottish author , who is generally considered the originator of historical fiction with the novel '' Waverley Waverley may refer t ...
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Duke Of Buccleuch
Duke of Buccleuch (pronounced ), formerly also spelt Duke of Buccleugh, is a title in the Peerage of Scotland created twice on 20 April 1663, first for James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth and second suo jure for his wife Anne Scott, 4th Countess of Buccleuch. Monmouth, the eldest illegitimate son of Charles II was attainted after rebelling against his uncle James II and VII, but his wife's title was unaffected and passed on to their descendants, who have successively borne the surnames ''Scott'', ''Montagu-Scott'', ''Montagu Douglas Scott'' and ''Scott'' again. In 1810, the 3rd Duke of Buccleuch inherited the Dukedom of Queensberry, also in the Peerage of Scotland, thus separating that title from the Marquessate of Queensberry. The substantial origin of the ducal house of the Scotts of Buccleuch dates back to the large grants of lands in Scotland to Sir Walter Scott of Kirkurd and Buccleuch, a border chief, by James II, in consequence of the fall of William Dougl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet
''The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet'' is an historical fiction novel by British author David Mitchell published by Sceptre in 2010. It is set during the Dutch trading concession with Japan in the late 18th-century, during the period of Japanese history known as '' Sakoku''. Plot The novel begins in the summer of 1799 at the Dutch East India Company trading post Dejima in the harbor of Nagasaki. It tells the story of a Dutch trader's love for a Japanese midwife who is spirited away into a sinister mountain temple cult. Part 1: The Bride For Whom We Dance In 1799, Japanese midwife Orito Aibagawa helps deliver the baby of Magistrate Shiroyama. Jacob de Zoet, working as a clerk on a Dutch merchant ship, arrives at the island of Dejima, midway through an ad hoc trial of Daniel Snitker, the acting chief of a factory on the island. Jacob hopes to make his fortune working under Chief Vorstenbosch and the Dutch East India Company to pay for the dowry of his betrothed, Anna. After ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
An Officer And A Spy
''An Officer and a Spy'' is a 2013 historical fiction thriller by the English writer and journalist Robert Harris. It tells the true story of the French officer Georges Picquart from 1896 to 1906, as he struggles to expose the truth about the doctored evidence that sent Alfred Dreyfus to Devil's Island. Plot summary Upon being promoted to run the ''Statistical Section'', the top secret headquarters of French military intelligence, Georges Picquart begins to discover that the evidence that was used to convict Alfred Dreyfus of espionage, which resulted in his imprisonment for life on Devil's Island, is flimsy at best. As he investigates further, he discovers that the military and the government doctored much of the evidence. Moreover, the spy who actually passed the information Dreyfus was convicted of sending to the Germans is actually still operating. Warned off the investigation by his superiors, Picquart persists, risking his career and his life, to free an innocent man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toby's Room
''Toby's Room'' is English novelist Pat Barker's follow up novel to ''Life Class'' (2007). It continues to follow the fortunes of a group of students and teachers of the Slade School of Fine Art during the First World War. Plot summary The novel falls into two distinct parts covering two time periods – 1912 and 1917 1912 Elinor Brooke, student at Slade, is home for the weekend from her studies in London, along with her older siblings Rachel and Toby. She and Toby go walking out to the old Mill, something that they did, although forbidden, as children. While exploring the Mill, Toby and Elinor fall into a playful embrace, which becomes, at least on Toby's part, a passionate kiss, which he immediately regrets. Although disgusted by his behavior, Elinor agrees to pretend that nothing has happened to the rest of the family. Nevertheless, she is distressed by what has happened, and goes to Toby's room that night to confront him. He wakes and pulls her into bed with him. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Daughters Of Mars
''The Daughters of Mars'' is a 2012 novel by Australian novelist Tom Keneally. Plot summary Sally and Naomi Durance are two nurses from country New South Wales who are shipped to Egypt during World War I end up on the Red Cross hospital ship ''Archimedes'', stationed in the Dardanelles. The novel follows the sisters through that campaign and on to northern Europe. Notes * Dedication: To the two nurses, Judith and Jane Reviews In ''The Guardian'' Jay Parini notes that "Keneally revisits the first world war from the perspective of two sisters, nurses who see the blood and guts of this conflict from the periphery, on hospital ships and operating theatres...Of course there are love stories, rather inevitable and not especially interesting or memorable. And not quite knowing how to conclude the novel, Keneally offers a peculiar, bifurcated ending that doesn't work. But in truth this doesn't matter. This is a novel on an epic scale: its plenitude and anguish are life-enhancing, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Man Of His Time
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bring Up The Bodies
''Bring Up the Bodies'' is an historical novel by Hilary Mantel; sequel to the award-winning ''Wolf Hall;'' and part of a trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, the powerful minister in the court of King Henry VIII. It won the 2012 Booker Prize and the 2012 Costa Book of the Year. The final novel in the trilogy, ''The Mirror and the Light,'' was published in March 2020. Plot ''Bring Up the Bodies'' follows closely upon the events of ''Wolf Hall''. The King and Cromwell—now Master Secretary to the King's Privy Council—are guests of the Seymour family at Wolf Hall. The King spends time with Jane Seymour and begins to fall in love; his marriage to the new queen, Anne Boleyn, is sometimes loving but often descends into angry quarrels. "I cannot live as I have lived," Henry finally tells Cromwell in private. He has tired of Anne, who brings him neither peace nor a son, and wants his marriage ended. Cromwell vows to make this happen. Ever the dealmaker, Cromwel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Garden Of Evening Mists
''The Garden of Evening Mists'' is the second English-language novel by Malaysian novelist Tan Twan Eng, first published in November 2011. The book follows protagonist Teoh Yun Ling, who was a Prisoner of war, prisoner of the Japanese during the World War II, and later became a judge overseeing war crimes cases. Seeking after the war to create a garden in memory of her sister, who was imprisoned with her but did not survive, she ends up serving as an apprentice to a Japanese gardener in Cameron Highlands District, Cameron Highlands for several months during the Malayan Emergency. As the story begins, years later, she is trying to make sense of her life and experiences. The novel takes place during three different time periods: the late 1980s, when the main character returns to the Japanese garden, Yugiri, of her apprenticeship and begins to write her memoir; the early 1950s, when the main events of the novel took place; and World War II, which provides the backdrop for the stor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Stranger's Child
''The Stranger's Child'' is the fifth novel by Alan Hollinghurst, first published in June 2011. The book tells the story of a minor poet, Cecil Valance, who is killed in the First World War. In 1913, he visits a Cambridge friend, George Sawle, at the latter's home in Stanmore, Middlesex. While there Valance writes a poem entitled "Two Acres", about the Sawles' house and addressed, ambiguously, either to George himself or to George's younger sister, Daphne. The poem goes on to become famous and the novel follows the changing reputation of Valance and his poetry in the following decades. The phrase "the stranger's child" comes from the poem ''In Memoriam A.H.H.'' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson: "And year by year the landscape grow / Familiar to the stranger's child." In an interview with ''The Oxonian Review'' in 2012, Hollinghurst commented of the epigraph that " e music of the words is absolutely wonderful, marvellously sad and consoling all at once. It fitted exactly with an idea I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sisters Brothers
''The Sisters Brothers'' is a 2011 Western novel by Canadian-born author Patrick deWitt. The darkly comic story takes place in Oregon and California in 1851. The narrator, Eli Sisters, and his brother Charlie are assassins tasked with killing Hermann Kermit Warm, an ingenious prospector who has been accused of stealing from the Sisters' fearsome boss, the Commodore. Eli and Charlie experience a series of misadventures while tracking down Warm which resemble the narrative form of a picaresque novel, and the chapters are, according to one review, "slightly sketched-in, dangerously close to a film treatment." The film rights for the novel were sold to actor John C. Reilly's production company and adapted into a 2018 film of the same name, with Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix playing Eli and Charlie, respectively. Plot summary In 1851, Eli and Charlie Sisters, a pair of assassins of minor repute, are hired by a wealthy businessman known only as "the Commodore" to travel from Oregon Ci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Quality Of Mercy (Unsworth Novel)
''The Quality of Mercy'' was Barry Unsworth's final novel published in 2011, a sequel to the Booker Prize novel ''Sacred Hunger''. It is set in mostly in County Durham where Unsworth grew up. Sacred Hunger (prequel) ''Sacred Hunger'' comprises two sections, the first is set in a slave ship. Illness follows the slaves and the captain tells his crew to throw the slaves overboard to claim the insurance. The crew mutiny and the captain is killed. The second section is set in Florida, a decade later where the ship is beached, and the slaves and crew live alongside each other. Erasmus Kemp's father owned the ship but the bankruptcy led to his death. Kemp captured the crew and returns to London in an attempt to hang them. Plot introduction The sequel ''The Quality of Mercy'' is set in 1767, Kemp has brought the remainder of the crew who are in Newgate Prison and await the trial. But an Irish fiddler has managed to escape and heads to Durham to tell Billy Blair's mining family of his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pure (Miller Novel)
''Pure'' is a 2011 novel by English author Andrew Miller. The book is the sixth novel by Miller and was released on 9 June 2011 in the United Kingdom through Sceptre, an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton. The novel is set in pre-revolutionary France and the upcoming turmoil is a consistent theme throughout. It follows an engineer named Jean-Baptiste Baratte and chronicles his efforts in clearing an overfilled graveyard which is polluting the surrounding area. Baratte makes friends and enemies as the cemetery is both loved and hated by the people of the district. Miller was inspired to write about the Les Innocents Cemetery after reading historian Philippe Ariès's brief description of its clearing and imagining the theatrics that must have been involved. The novel received positive reviews, particularly noting the quality of writing. The novel was awarded the Costa Book Award 2011 for "Best Novel" and "Book of the Year", and was nominated for the Walter Scott Prize and South Ban ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
