1DBKESL Archives - Duckworth Books

The London Underground

Experience the Tube like never before and discover the top 50 unusual things to do and see on the London Underground.

Explore the rarest routes, take historic rides, visit abandoned stations, uncover secret shortcuts, discover letter-based odysseys and embark on unique Tube challenges with this lively, interactive book.

You can:

Find secret staircases

Take an escalator expedition

Race the Tube between stops

Find the Tube’s strangest station

Bursting with facts and activities from YouTube train expert Geoff Marshall with additional sights to see from his co-creator of All the Stations, Vicki Pipe, this book will inspire children – and adults – to seize the moment and explore the hidden world of London’s Underground.

Spider, Spider

‘L. C. Winter is fantastic writer. If you liked The Silence Factory by the splendid Bridget Collins, I think this is for you’ Natasha Pulley, author of The Hymn to Dionysus and The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

Vengeance is theirs and theirs alone. But who will deal the fatal blow?

Young Nancy Ratcliffe is on the run. Her father had sought refuge for his family with the Brethren, led by the charismatic but dangerous Prophet. But now her father is gravely ill, and even the sooty streets of Victorian London hold less terror for Nancy than the brutality of Brethren Hall.

Meanwhile, Spider is biding her time. Wrapped in dreams and visions, she paces the dark corridors and hidden staircases of the crumbling house she grew up in. The man who murdered a part of her disappeared many years ago, but still she hopes for revenge.

Jet-black and thrilling, Spider, Spider is an unforgettable tale of a woman who has lost herself in the poison of vengeance, and the knife-sharp girl who might just bring her back.

It’s Too Late Now

In his classic autobiography A. A. Milne, with his characteristic self-deprecating humour, recalls a blissfully happy childhood in the company of his brothers, and writes with touching affection about the father he adored.

From Westminster School he won a scholarship to Cambridge University where he edited the university magazine, before going out into the world, determined to be a writer. He was assistant editor at Punch and went on to enjoy great success with his novels, plays and stories. And of course he is best remembered for his children’s novels and verses featuring Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin.

This is both an account of how a writer was formed and a charming period piece on literary life – Milne met countless famous authors including H. G. Wells, J.M Barrie and Rudyard Kipling.

Tiger Woman

Dancer, singer, gang member, cocaine addict and artist’s favourite: Betty May – aka the Tiger Woman – was a woman like no other.

Born into abject poverty in Limehouse, Betty May used her striking looks and fierce street nous to become an unlikely bohemian celebrity sensation between the wars. A model and muse for artists and writers including Augustus John, Jacob Epstein, Jacob Kramer and David Garnett, May elbowed her way to the top of London’s social scene in a succession of outrageous and dramatic fights, flights, marriages and misadventures that also took her to France, Italy, Canada and the USA.

Tiger Woman is her incredible story in her own words, as vivid and extraordinary as the day it was first told.

Vagabonds

Dickensian London is brought to real and vivid life in this Wolfson History Prize-shortlisted portrait by a rising-star historian and New Generation Thinker

Until now, our view of bustling late Georgian and Victorian London has been filtered through its great chroniclers, who did not themselves come from poverty – Dickens, Mayhew, Gustave Doré. Their visions were dazzling in their way, censorious, often theatrical. Now, for the first time, this innovative social history brilliantly – and radically – shows us the city’s most compelling period (1780–1870) at street level.

From beggars and thieves to musicians and missionaries, porters and hawkers to sex workers and street criers, Jensen unites a breadth of original research and first-hand accounts and testimonies to tell their stories in their own words. What emerges is a buzzing, cosmopolitan world of the working classes, diverse in gender, ethnicity, origin, ability and occupation – a world that challenges and fascinates us still.

The Optickal Illusion

In The Optickal Illusion, Rachel Halliburton’s meticulous recreation of Georgian society reveals the sordid details of a genuine scandal that deceived the British Royal Academy.

Her debut novel questions the lengths women must go to make their mark on a society that seeks to underplay their abilities – a theme only too relevant today. It is three years from the dawn of a new century and in London, nothing is certain any more: the future of the monarchy is in question, the city is aflame with right and left-wing conspiracies, and the French could invade any day.

Against this feverish atmosphere, the American painter Benjamin West is visited by a strange father and daughter, the Provises, who claim they have a secret that has obsessed painters for centuries: the Venetian techniques of master painter Titian. West was once the most celebrated painter in London, but hasn’t produced anything of note in years so against his better judgment he agrees to let the intriguing Ann Jemima Provis visit his studio and demonstrate what she knows. What unravels reveals more than he has ever understood – about himself, about the treachery of the art world and the seductive promise of genius. The nature of truth itself is called into question in this story of envy, lust and corruption.

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