Fiona MacCarthy

Once upon a time, the well-bred daughters of Britain's aristocracy took part in a female rite of passage: curtseying to the Queen. But in 1958, this ritual was coming to an end. Under pressure to shine — not least from their mothers — the girls became the focus for newspaper diarists and society photographers in a party season that stretched...

Fiona MacCarthy makes a breakthrough in interpreting Byron's life and poetry, drawing on John Murray's world-famous archive. She brings a fresh eye to his early years: his childhood in Scotland, embattled relations with his mother, and the effect of his deformed foot on his development. She traces his early travels in the Mediterranean and the East, illuminating his relationships with...

Since his death in 1896, William Morris has come to be regarded as one of the giants of the nineteenth century. But his genius was so many-sided and so profound that its full extent has rarely been grasped. Many people may find it hard to believe that the greatest English designer of his time, possibly of all time, could also...