In brutally repressive sixteenth-century England, artists had been frightened into dull conventionality; foreigners were suspect; popular entertainment largely consisted of coarse spectacles, animal fights, and hangings. Into this crude world came an ambitious cobbler's son with an uncanny ear for Latin poetry-a torment for most schoolboys, yet for a few, a secret portal to beauty, visionary imagination, transgressive desire, and dangerous skepticism. What Christopher Marlowe found on the oth...

A guide to Egyptian mythology that explores how the ancient Nile-dwellers explained the world around them. It delves into the origins of life, the creation and evolution of the world, and the reigns of the gods on earth, before introducing us to the manifestations of Egypts deities in the natural environment.

As well as vividly exploring the tales, the author brings her expertise in the archaeology of the Iron Age and particularly shamanism to bear on the mythical worlds she describes, with evidence as diverse as the Gundestrup Cauldron and the famous bog bodies. She also asks how the myths survived the Christianization of Europe.

A unique approach to Egyptian mythology that takes the reader on a tour up the Nile, stopping at the most famous monuments and vividly retelling the myths connected to each site.

A definitive reference that showcases the groundbreaking work of William Smith, the unsung ‘father of English geology’.

1922 was a year of great turbulence and upheaval. Its events reverberated throughout the rest of the twentieth century and still affect us today, 100 years later. In a sequence of vividly written sketches, Nick Rennison conjures up all the drama and diversity of an extraordinary year....

From leading expert, Élisabeth de Feydeau, comes a luxurious and lavishly illustrated volume on the history of perfume, from the scented oils of ancient times up to the present day.

A thrilling political history about the months that brought England to the cusp of civil war, from the acclaimed author of The Blazing World