The story of Erskine Childers, a highly talented eccentric and the father of the modern genre of spy adventure novels. It tells of how his intense support of Irish Nationalism involving spying, gun running and conspiracy eventually led to his execution by firing squad in Ireland in 1923.

Immortalized as the author of The Riddle of the Sands, Erskine Childers led a life quite as enigmatic and adventurous as his classic novel. Childers was orphaned at an early age. Though he was brought up in County Wicklow, he received an English education that culminated in a clerkship to the House of Commons, voluntary service in the Boer War, and the writing of his great novel. Thus far he appeared patriotic, imperialist and largely conformist. But marriage to a strong-willed Bostonian and an increasing interest in the affairs of Ireland led to his questioning the imperial Zeitgeist. At first this took constitutional forms, but such was Childers' frustration with progress towards any manner of Irish independence from British rule, that on the eve of the First World War he instigated gun-running to supporters of the Home Rule movement. Nonetheless, he still regarded it as his duty to serve England, and during the war he distinguished himself as an observer in the early seaplanes and torpedo boats. Traumatized, however, by the Easter Rising of 1916, he finished the war profoundly divided in his loyalties. With the Irish question now critical, Childers settled his fate by becoming the official propagandist for the Republican movement. He opposed the treaty that established the Irish Free State, regarding the compromise as anathema, and joined the IRA. Hunted by the Free State authorities, he was eventually captured and executed in November 1922. Set against the backdrop of Britain's imperial zenith, the great naval arms race and the First World War, Jim Ring's acclaimed biography of Childers does full justice to this dramatic and intriguing story. 'Jim Ring has written a fine and fluent biography of an extraordinary man, navigating the angry waters [of Irish politics] with a sure hand but dodging none of the difficulties.' Independent on Sunday

One of the first great spy novels, The Riddle of the Sands is set during the long, suspicious years leading up to the First World War. In spite of good prospects in the Foreign Office, sardonic civil servant Carruthers is finding it hard to endure the boredom of his life in London. He accepts an invitation from a college friend, Davies, a shyly intrepid yachtsman, and joins him on a sailing holiday in the Baltic, and there, amidst the sunshine and bright blue seas, they discover a German plot to invade England . . . Like much contemporary British spy fiction, The Riddle of the Sands reflects the Anglo-German rivalry of the early twentieth century, and the intricacy of the book’s conception and its lucid detail make it a classic of its genre. This Macmillan Collector’s Library edition of Erskine Childers' The Riddle of the Sands features maps drawn from Childers’ originals and an afterword by writer and journalist Ned Halley. Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

Think you know about British history and the causes of the First World War? Think again. This fascinating and gripping study of events at the turn of the Twentieth Century is a remarkable insight into how political and social factors that we widely accept to be the causes of The Great War, were really just a construct put together by a very small, but powerful, political elite... 'Thought-provoking . . . Docherty and Macgregor do not mince their words . . . their arguments are powerful' -- Britain at War 'Simply astonishing' -- ***** Reader review 'Very illuminating' -- ***** Reader review 'You simply MUST read this book' -- ***** Reader review 'This is a page-turner' -- ***** Reader review *********************************************************************************** Hidden History uniquely exposes those responsible for the First World War. It reveals how accounts of the war's origins have been deliberately falsified to conceal the guilt of the secret cabal of very rich and powerful men in London responsible for the most heinous crime perpetrated on humanity. For ten years, they plotted the destruction of Germany as the first stage of their plan to take control of the world. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was no chance happening. It lit a fuse that had been carefully set through a chain of command stretching from Sarajevo through Belgrade and St Petersburg to that cabal in London. Our understanding of these events has been firmly trapped in a web of falsehood and duplicity carefully constructed by the victors at Versailles in 1919 and maintained by compliant historians ever since. The official version is fatally flawed, warped by the volume of evidence they destroyed or concealed from public view. Hidden History poses a tantalising challenge. The authors ask only that you examine the evidence they lay before you . . .

Fascinating account of the British state's post-war obsession with secrecy and the ways it prevented secret activities from becoming public.

100 British Crime Writers explores a history of British crime writing between 1855 and 2015 through 100 writers, detailing their lives and significant writing and exploring their contributions to the genre. Divided into four sections: 'The Victorians, Edwardians, and World War One, 1855-1918; 'The Golden Age and World War Two, 1919-1945; 'Post-War and Cold War, 1946-1989; and 'To the Millennium and Beyond, 1990-2015, each section offers an introduction to the significant features of these eras in crime fiction and discusses trends in publication, readership, and critical response. With entries spanning the earliest authors of crime fiction to a selection of innovative contemporary novelists, this book considers the development and progression of the genre in the light of historical and social events.

From tragic generals to nuns on the run – the extraordinary stories of the Irish on the frontlines of the First World War that you've never heard before Based on first-hand accounts of the First World War, The Glorious Madness is a collection of character portraits and stirring anecdotes that brings to life the hopes, fears and ambitions that defined the generation of Irish men and women lost to the catastrophe of the first great modern war. From the generals and field commanders through to the troopers and nurses on the front lines, from the trenches of the Somme to the beaches of Gallipoli, the Irish served at every turn in the Great War. Popular historian Turtle Bunbury is renowned for uncovering important forgotten stories from our past. Here he reveals many never-before-heard tales of the Irish heroes and heroines whose lives coincided with one of the most brutal conflicts our world has ever known – including nuns, artists, sportsmen, poets, aristocrats, nationalists, nurses, clergymen and film directors. From the dramatic story of the nuns of Ypres and their escape to Ireland to found Kylemore Abbey, to the multiple-escapist who became the one-legged nemesis of Michael Collins, and the five tragic, rugby-loving pals from the same Dublin team massacred at Gallipoli, the stories that Turtle Bunbury unearths about Irish men and women offer a new and timely perspective on Irish participation in the Great War. An important book, by turns poignant, enlightening, whimsical and darkly comic, this is history as it should – free-wheeling and finely tuned to the rhythms of the human heart. Reviews [In The Glorious Madness] Turtle continues the wonderful listening and yarn-spinning he has honed in the Vanishing Ireland series, applying it to veterans of the First World War. The stories he recreates are poignant, whimsical and bleakly funny, bringing back into the light the lives of people who found themselves on the wrong side of history after the struggle for Irish independence. This is my kind of micro-history. John Grenham, The Irish Times A wonderful book packed with great individual stories and pictures which bring the Irish participation in the Great War vividly alive. Sean Farrell, Irish Independent Based on first-hand accounts of the conflict, this collection of character portraits and stirring anecdotes brings to life the hopes, fears and ambitions that defined Ireland's 'lost generation'. Peter Costello, The Irish Catholic Turtle Bunbury's book about the Great War is a great read, a dramatic confection of remarkable stories about remarkable events and individuals slapped together with great dexterity and professionalism. ... This is military history as entertainment on a scale we have not seen since, well, the First World War ... This is one book that can be judged by its cover. Pádraig Yeates, Dublin Review of Books The impressively versatile Turtle Bunbury is known for his sensitively written, well-observed Vanishing Ireland series of books and his appearance on RTE's Genealogy Roadshow. He also toured this year as one of the lecturers in the Great War Roadshow, headed by Myles Dungan. Now, also marking the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, Bunbury marches into what once would have been a no-man's land for historians. There is much to enjoy here. Bunbury has an eye for irony and pathos and a fluid attractive writing style. It's packed with personalities and stories of courage under fire amid truly unimaginable slaughter, of mind-boggling military incompetence and of individuals emotionally afflicted by reports of courage in another cause at home. Emmanuel Kehoe, Sunday Business Post

Dorothy Stopford Price was arguably the most instrumental individual in eradicating the TB epidemic within Ireland. She introduced BCG to its shores which, to this day, prevent children from catching tuberculosis. This illuminating biography uncovers the importance of her medical work and of occasionally controversial measures that placed her in opposition to one of the strongest voices in Ireland at the time the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid. Prior to her trials and successes with the TB epidemic, her medical career and social standing determined a fascinating life story: born within the Protestant Ascendancy to an Anglo-Irish family and a guest of the under-secretary to the British Administration during the Easter Rising, she soon crossed a stark divide, developing an ardent republican outlook that led to her appointment as medical officer to a West Cork Flying Column of the IRA during the War of Independence. Her determination never ceased and in 1921 she channelled her energies towards eradicating TB in Ireland; at a time when the Irish medical profession looked to the United Kingdom for leadership, she taught herself German to access scientific literature at the fore of medical developments. Anne MacLellan s biography accounts for this provocative and indomitable life of an Irish woman frequently caught at the epicentre of Irish affairs.

This book brings together new contributions in Popular Fiction Studies, giving us a vivid sense of new directions in analysis and focus. It looks into the histories of popular genres such as the amatory novel, imperial romance, the western, Australian detective fiction, Whitechapel Gothic novels, the British spy thriller, Japanese mysteries, the 'new weird', fantasy, girl hero action novels and Quebecois science fiction. It also examines the production, reproduction and distribution of popular fiction as it carves out space for itself in transnational marketplaces and across different media entertainment systems; and it discusses the careers of popular authors and the various investments in popular fiction by readers and fans. This book will be indispensable for anyone with a serious interest in this prolific but highly distinctive literary field.