"Drawing on the group's surviving letters, poems and Dorothy's diaries, Worthen throws new light on many old problems. He examines the pre-history of the events of 1802, the dynamics of the group between March and July, the summer of 1802, when Wordsworth and Dorothy visited Calais to see his ex-mistress and his daughter Caroline and the wedding between Wordsworth and Mary in October of that year. In an epilogue he looks forward to the ways in which relationships changed during 1803 and in the years to come."--BOOK JACKET.

This book tells a true detective story set mainly in Elizabethan London during the years of cold war just before the Armada of 1588. The mystery is the identity of a spy working in a foreign embassy to frustrate Catholic conspiracy and propaganda aimed at the overthrow of Queen Elizabeth and her government. The suspects in the case are the inmates of the house, an old building in the warren of streets and gardens between Fleet Street and the Thames. These include the ambassador, a civilized Frenchman, his wife, his daughter, his secretary, his clerk and his priest, the tutor, the chef, the butler, and the concierge. They also include a runaway friar, the Neapolitan philosopher, poet, and comedian Giordano Bruno, who wrote masterpieces of Italian literature, who was later burned in Rome for his anti-papal opinions, and who has been revered in Italy for his honorable and heroic resistance to papal authority. Others in the cast are Queen Elizabeth, her formidable secretary of state Sir Francis Walsingham, and King Henry III of France; poets, courtiers, and scholars; statesmen, conspirators, go-betweens, and stool-pigeons. When not in London, the action takes place in Paris and Oxford; a good deal of it happens on the river Thames. The hero or villain, who calls himself Fagot, does his work most effectively, is not found out, and disappears. In the first part of the book these events are narrated. In the second the spy is identified and his story put together. John Bossy's brilliant research, backed by his forensic and literary skills, solves a centuries-old mystery. His book makes a major contribution to the political and intellectual history of the wars of religion in Europe and to the domestic history of Elizabethan England. Not least, it is compelling reading.

For centuries, man and mole have taken from the soil in their bid to survive. This has resulted in bitter conflict between these adversaries and one that continues today. Whatever the season, whatever the weather, wherever the mole, mole catchers have worked to remove moles. Journey through history with the mole catchers of old as you learn of their lives, their work, and their struggle to survive with the pressure of change. Learn of the demands and needs inflicted upon the mole and how it adapts to survive, discover how it exploits the efforts of man, and how they deal with his plight to rid the land of them. Follow Jeff Nicholls through a typical year in the life of a mole catcher and explore the secrets of success to be mole free. Understand the relationship between man and mole both in alliance and conflict, and unearth your passion towards the little man in black. Jeff Nicholls has previously written books on mole catching but this is his most personal composition, providing the knowledge to compete on a level playing field and fully understand the rules of engagement. It will be a mole catcher's handbook for many years to come containing everything you will ever need to know. Fully illustrated with 77 colour photographs.

In this long-out-of-print counterculture classic, Dr. John C. Lilly takes readers behind the scenes into the inner life of a scientist exploring inner space, or “far-out spaces,” as Lilly called them. The book explains how he derived his theory of the operations of the human mind and brain from his personal experiences and experiments in solitude, isolation, and confinement; LSD; and other methods of mystical experience. It also includes glimpses into Lilly's friendship with such 1960s' notables as Oscar Ichazo, Ram Dass, Timothy Leary, Albert Hofmann, Fritz Perls, and Claudio Narajo. Written for the non-specialist, Center of the Cyclone shows an important, modern thinker at his most personal and profound.

Shakespeare has traditionally been viewed as Queen Elizabeth's 'poet laureate', and as the official mouthpiece of the Elizabethan age. But the Elizabethan world was torn apart by the religious divisions initiated by the Reformation, and vitiated by the government's merciless persecution of Catholics. As it was the victors who wrote the history, the English Reformation has been portrayed as a peaceful transition enjoying majority support, when in fact it was nothing of the kind. Elizabeth's regime was a police state which sanctioned the use of torture, where Catholic priests and those who harboured them were liable to summary and bloody execution. The persecution of Catholics was continued by James I, evoking the violent response of the Gunpowder Plot. The Heart of His Mystery examines Shakespeare's life and work against this background. There is strong biographical evidence that he was himself a Catholic, and a detailed survey of his plays and poems shows that his imagination was intimately bound up with his religious faith. When we realise that his human compassion grew from his membership in a persecuted community, we can glimpse the mystery he has encrypted in his works and we come closer to understanding the hidden heart of Shakespeare the man.

"A wonderful memoir ... hands down the most charming book I read last year."--Margaret Renkl, The New York Times A country gardener explores his kinship with the natural world in this heartwarming, human book where "each page is filled with love, regret, humility and a sense of wonder (and oneness) with nature" (Washington Post). Marc Hamer is a humble gardener with the heart of a poet and the mind of a philosopher. In this peaceful memoir, he shares how, from boyhood into old age, he has lived with, and not against, nature. How his proximity to soil, sun, and shade has unleashed the greatest joys and profoundest sorrows of his life. And how our humanity is inextricably linked to the natural world, so we should have the good sense to leave it alone. In simple, striking sentences, Marc offers a kind of poetic field guide to living in nature. He shares memories of childhood homelessness, his own poetry, wisdom about plants, and vivid descriptions of the garden he works in daily. He tells of flowers that are planted, bloom, and then die, of trees that burst into color, and of moles who burrow below pristine lawns. As a hired gardener, he has hunted moles for decades, but now he decides to let them be. Like him, moles do their work in the soil. Allowing them to continue is allowing all life to flourish. Beautifully written, life-affirming, and meditative, How to Catch a Mole is a portrait of one man's unshakable bond with his natural surroundings, offering hope and inspiration for readers looking to reconnect to nature, to each other, and to life itself.