Dieser britische Autor erforscht komplexe Beziehungen und die menschliche Psyche mit eindringlicher Einsicht. Seine Werke befassen sich oft mit Themen wie Identität, Erinnerung und der Suche nach dem Sinn im Leben. Durch sorgfältig ausgearbeitete Charaktere und eindringliche Atmosphären zieht er den Leser in die Tiefen der menschlichen Erfahrung. Seine Prosa zeichnet sich durch literarische Eleganz und die Fähigkeit aus, feine Nuancen von Emotionen und Gedanken einzufangen.
The narrative offers a nuanced exploration of a complex and multifaceted individual, highlighting his contradictions and obsessions while also revealing his heroic qualities. Through a blend of wit and insight, the author presents fresh revelations that deepen the reader's understanding of this sympathetic figure, inviting a reconsideration of his character and legacy.
Half An Arch is the compelling autobiography of one of the most distinctive English writers of the late twentieth century, Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy. In The Rise and Fall of the English Nanny, The Public School Phenomenon, and Doctors, Gathorne-Hardy explored three apparently familiar institutions with unprecedented originality and depth. Now the biographer of writer and adventurer Gerald Brenan and American sexologist Alfred Kinsey brings the same rigour, perception and sensitivity to bear on the story of his own life, as he chronicles, vividly but without sentimentality, the brutal decline in the fortunes of the clever and colourful Gathorne-Hardy family in the aftermath of two world wars.
First published in 1972, Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy's The Rise and Fall of the British Nanny became an instant classic of social history - a groundbreaking study of the golden era of an extraordinary and exclusive British institution. Drawing upon extensive paper research and interviews with former nannies and their charges, Gathorne-Hardy offers 'a study of a unique and curious way of bringing up children, which evolved among the upper and upper-middle-classes during the nineteenth century, flourished for approximately eighty years and then, with the Second World War, vanished for ever.' The nanny hereby earns her place in the story of the British Empire; also in the histories of psychology, child-rearing and British ruling class mores. 'Marvellously researched and beautifully written.' W. H. Auden, Observer'Enough to delight the sternest critic.' Auberon Waugh, Harpers & Queen
The public schools of England have long been praised and reviled in equal measure. Do they perpetuate elites and unjust divisions of social class? Do they improve or corrupt young minds and bodies? Should they be abolished? Are they in fact the form of education we would all wish for our children if we could only afford the fees? Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy's classic study of Britain's 'independent sector' of schools first appeared in 1977 and still stands as the most widely admired history of the subject, ranging across 1400 years in its spirited investigation. Provocative and comprehensive, witty and revealing, it traces the arc by which schools that were, circa 1900, typically 'frenziedly repressive about sex, odiously class-conscious and shut off into tight, conventional, usually brutal little total communities' gradually evolved into acknowledged centres of academic excellence, as keen on science as organised games, 'fairly relaxed about sex, and moderate in discipline' - but to which access still 'depends largely on class and entirely on money.'
"Amid the turbulence of sixteenth century European politics, there existed a system of bribery enabling competing countries to keep their place in the one of the most important and lucrative areas of contemporary commerce – the great trade and spice routes. When Thomas Dallam, a young organ builder from North-West England was commissioned to build a musical clockwork marvel, jewel encrusted and with a multitude of wondrous moving parts, he suddenly found himself acting as ambassador for Elizabeth I; The organ was to be a gift for the mighty Ottoman Sultan – intended to buy his favour and cement England’s trading rights across his empire – and Dallam was instructed to present it to the Sultan in person. Closely following the detailed diary he kept during his year-long voyage, The Sultan’s Organ reveals the extraordinary world Dallam travelled to as he sailed through the Mediterranean and Levant before eventually arriving at the beating heart of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople. The people and places he encounters, from the pirates of Algiers to the inside of the Sultan’s Harem itself – something virtually no outsider ever witnessed before or after him – introduce us not only to a charming and erudite man of his age, but also shed light on a part of the world which was, and remains, a beguiling, fascinating and challenging place to understand"-- Provided by publisher
Born in 1894 to a well-off military family, Gerard Brenan was expected to follow the family tradition. But at Radley school he discovered a love of books and an urge to break the mould, which led him to abscond to Europe for six months.
When Cyril Bonhamy applies for a job as a Father Christmas he is surprised at how burly the other applicants are. He gets the job but spends more time reading than with the children. Then one of the burly Santas send him a note.
