Originally published in 1905, this work contains a wealth of information on various aspects of the history of London and its buildings. Beautifully illustrated, the author takes the reader on a tour of the buildings that began to vanish from the city at the turn of the 19th century. The following passage is taken from the preface: 'The writer, for many years, has employed his spare time in examining those older portions of London which have now been to a great extent ""improved"" away; he has visited them again and again, making notes on the spot, with brush and pencil, of picturesque buildings, threatened with destruction. He has also hunted up old documents relating to them, and has carefully checked any statements on the subject by previous writers. The result of what has been to him a labour of love may perhaps have interest, even value, for the public. This must be his excuse for adding to the already long list of publications on old London. The buildings alluded to in this work are widely scattered: they must be looked upon as a selection only of what we are losing, for in no single volume is there space, and no man alone can have had time and energy, to deal with a tithe of the interesting structures, from Mile End to Hammersmith, which either still drag on a precarious existence or have not long passed away. The letterpress is divided into chapters, beginning with the east and south east, progress being made by easy stages to the west, so that what has been written takes more or less the form of an itinerary, but the requirements of the subject make it impossible to follow absolutely any fixed plan.'

Vanishing Streets reveals an American writer's twenty-year love affair with London. Beguiling and idiosyncratic, obsessive and wry, it offers an illustrated travelogue of the peripheries, retracing some of London's most curious locations. As J. M. Tyree wanders deliriously in "the world's most visited city," he rediscovers and reinvents places that have changed drastically since he was a student at Cambridge in the 1990s. Tyree stumbles into the ghosts of Alfred Hitchcock, Graham Greene, and the pioneers of the British Free Cinema Movement. He offers a new way of seeing familiar landmarks through the lens of film history, and reveals strange nooks and tiny oddities in out-of-the-way places, from a lost film by John Ford supposedly shot in Wapping to the beehives hidden in Tower Hamlets Cemetery, an area haunted by a translation error in W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz. This book blends deeply personal writing with a foreigner's observations on a world capital experiencing an unsettling moment of transition. Vanishing Streets builds into an astonishing and innovative multi-layered project combining autobiography, movie madness, and postcard-like annotations on the magical properties of a great city. Tyree argues passionately for London as a cinematic dream city of perpetual fascinations and eccentricities, bridging the past and the present as well as the real and the imaginary.

“Transported me effortlessly…Haunting, harrowing and heartbreaking, this is a novel that will stay with you.” --Ashley Audrain, New York Times bestselling author of The Push “A ghost story and fantastically gripping psychological investigation rolled into one. It is also a pitch-perfect piece of writing. . . . As with Shirley Jackson’s work or Sarah Waters’s masterpiece Affinity, in Stonex’s hands the unspoken, unexamined, unseen world we can call the supernatural, a world fed by repression and lies, becomes terrifyingly tangible.” --The Guardian (London) Inspired by a haunting true story, a gorgeous and atmospheric novel about the mysterious disappearance of three lighthouse keepers from a remote tower miles from the Cornish coast--and about the wives who were left behind. What strange fate befell these doomed men? The heavy sea whispers their names. Black rocks roll beneath the surface, drowning ghosts. And out of the swell like a finger of light, the salt-scratched tower stands lonely and magnificent. It's New Year's Eve, 1972, when a boat pulls up to the Maiden Rock lighthouse with relief for the keepers. But no one greets them. When the entrance door, locked from the inside, is battered down, rescuers find an empty tower. A table is laid for a meal not eaten. The Principal Keeper's weather log describes a storm raging round the tower, but the skies have been clear. And the clocks have all stopped at 8:45. Two decades later, the keepers' wives are visited by a writer determined to find the truth about the men's disappearance. Moving between the women's stories and the men's last weeks together in the lighthouse, long-held secrets surface and truths twist into lies as we piece together what happened, why, and who to believe. In her riveting and suspenseful novel, Emma Stonex writes a story of isolation and obsession, of reality and illusion, and of what it takes to keep the light burning when all else is swallowed by dark.

A moving story of family and a life-long love affair in 1950s London, from the New York Times bestselling author of The House at Tyneford. London, 1958. It's the eve of the sexual revolution, but in Juliet Montague's conservative Jewish community where only men can divorce women, she ­finds herself a living widow, invisible. Ever since her husband disappeared seven years ago, Juliet has been a hardworking single mother of two and unnaturally practical. But on her thirtieth birthday, that's all about to change. A wealthy young artist asks to paint her portrait, and Juliet, moved by the powerful desire to be seen, enters into the burgeoning art world of 1960s London, which will bring her fame, fortune, and a life-long love affair.

Joseph M. Forshaw, one of the world’s leading authorities on parrots, calls attention to the threats they face: they are one of the most endangered groups of birds, with a growing number of species nearing extinction. The main threats arise from habitat loss through deforestation and agricultural development and from the taking of birds for the international live-bird trade. Vanished and Vanishing Parrots brings together information on species that have become extinct in historical times with information on species that are in danger of becoming extinct to increase public awareness of the plight of these magnificent birds. Vivid colour plates by the wildlife artist Frank Knight draw attention to the spectacular species that we have lost or that could be lost. Forshaw’s work gives us fascinating insight into these endangered and extinct parrots. Vanished and Vanishing Parrots will be a valuable reference for scientific, ornithological and avicultural organisations, as well as individual lovers of birds and of illustrated natural history books.