There were two women in Zhenbao's life: one he called his white rose, the other his red rose. One was a spotless wife, the other a passionate mistress. Isn't that just how the average man describe a chaste widow's devotion to her husband's memory - as spotless, and passionate too? Maybe every man has had two such women - at least two. Marry a red rose and eventually she'll be a mosquito-blood streak smeared on the wall, while the white one is "moonlight in front of my bed." Marry a white rose, and before long she'll be a grain of sticky rice that's gotten stuck to your clothes; the red one, by then, is a scarlet beauty mark just over your heart. In Eileen Chang's eloquent and evocative novella, Zhenbao is a devoted son, a diligent worker, and guarded in love. But when he meets a friend's spoilt, spirited, desirable wife, he cannot resist her charms, or keep their relationship under his control. As he succumbs to passions and resentments, Red Rose, White Rose is both sensual and restrained.

If Richard III had not charged to his death at Bosworth, how different might the history of Britain have been? Beginning in 1453 and ending in 1487, The Red Rose and the White provides a gripping overview of the bitter dynastic struggle for supremacy that raged between the houses of York and Lancaster for thirty years, culminating in the dramatic events on Bosworth Field in 1485. As well as offering a comprehensive account of the campaigns, battles and sieges of the conflict, the book also assesses the commanders and men involved and considers the weapons and tactics employed. Photographs, maps and portraits of the principal characters help to bring the period to life, whilst the fast-paced narrative conveys a sense of what it was actually like to fight in battles such as Towton or Tewkesbury the effect of the arrow storm and the grim realities of hand-to-hand combat with edged and bladed weapons. Skilfully weaving in political and social events to place the conflict in its context, The Red Rose and the White is a fascinating exploration of the turbulent period that would change the course of British history forever.

The powerful story of Cecily Neville, torn between both sides in the War of the Roses, from the best-selling author of The Agincourt Bride.

"Never before published, White Rose and the Red is the fictional biography of Elizabeth Siddall, wife of English poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. This extraordinary novel explores the charged interpersonal relationships between and among Siddall, Rossetti, and other key members of the pre-Raphaelite movement, including William Morris and John Ruskin, in an effort to depict struggles of nineteenth-century women within the avant-garde sphere." "During H.D.'s lifetime, publishers shied away from the novel's radically unconventional hybrid form that combines elements of historical nonfiction, fiction, and biography. As part of the dense and allusive prose trilogy written during and after World War II (along with The Sword Went Out to Sea and The Mystery), White Rose and the Red exemplifies the mythic theme that H.D. saw as unifying all her writing. It also examines how Siddall - a controversial muse and model - became the iconic figure of an artistic movement." "In her clear, energetic, and critically informed introduction, Alison Halsall situates H.D.'s work within an analytical framework that examines factors of gender, class, and spiritualism, which shaped Siddall's posthumous reputation. Halsall enhances the edition by pointing out its relevance to important issues within H.D. scholarship and analyzes Victorian influences on modernist self-definition." --Book Jacket.