Edwardian

Peter Stansky & William Abrahams describe how, after Tennyson’s death, the problem of finding a new Poet Laureate perturbed successive British governments.

During the sultry summer of 1911, writes Frank Hardie, a conflict between Commons and Lords presented King George V with one of the most difficult problems of his reign.

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, writes Marjorie Sykes, the arrival of migrant labourers, who often visited the same district year after year, was a distinctive feature of English country-life.

Stephen Usherwood recounts the lively reports sent from the goldfields of Yukon by Flora Shaw, the British journalist and writer, which began to appear in English newspapers in August 1898.

John Wroughton describes how the Prince of Wales and his Oxford tutor paid two agreeable visits to Germany in 1913, from which he returned with a warm affection for the German people.

David Hopkinson describes how the foundations of modern Britain were largely laid by Liberal intellectuals from 1906 onwards.

John Terraine sheds fresh light on the principles at stake in the disputes between generals and politicians during the last year of the First World War.

In 1897 The Gadfly was published in English by Ethel Lilian Voynich - ‘E.L.V.’ to her friends. Anne Fremantle introduces this revolutionary novel, set in nineteenth-century Italy, which has sold 5 million copies in Russia.

The gifted third son of the last Victorian Prime Minister was described as having ‘one foot in the Middle Ages and the other in the League of Nations’, as his descendant, Hugh Cecil, finds out.

Guy Atkins explains what made the postcard such an extraordinary and successful phenomenon of the early 20th century and draws parallels with today’s social media.