Insightful biographical sketches of major historical figures of the twentieth century, from the incomparable British statesman. Winston S. Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on the strength of “his mastery of historical and biographical description.” Nowhere is that mastery more evident than in Great Contemporaries—which features Churchill’s profiles of many of the major figures of his time. These short biographies cover political and cultural personalities ranging from Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Lawrence of Arabia, and Leon Trotsky to Charlie Chaplin, H. G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, and George Bernard Shaw. This edition includes five previously uncollected essays and a number of photographs, plus an enlightening introduction and annotations by noted Churchill scholar James W. Muller. Written in the decade before Churchill became prime minister, these essays focus on the challenges of statecraft at a time when the democratic revolution was toppling older regimes based on tradition and aristocratic privilege. Churchill’s keen observations take on new importance in our own age of roiling political change. Ultimately, Great Contemporaries provides fascinating insight into these subjects as Churchill approaches them with a measuring eye, finding their limitations at least as revealing as their merits.

Curated new collections. The fascination with Conan Doyle’s enigmatic anti-hero Sherlock Holmes, and his pompous narrator Dr Watson, has barely subsided over the years. Inspiring a long line of detective stories and Whodunnits, Holmes is a constant feature on TV, and movie screens, with new audio and radio shows joining the frenzy. The Holmes tales have earned their place amongst the most influential of popular fantasy, crime and gothic stories.

This book investigates the development of crime fiction in the 1880s and 1890s, challenging studies of late-Victorian crime fiction which have given undue prominence to a handful of key figures and have offered an over-simplified analytical framework, thereby overlooking the generic, moral, and formal complexities of the nascent genre.

Accessible exploration of Sherlock Holmes and his relationship to late-Victorian culture as well as his ongoing significance and popularity.