Bøker utgitt av Peter Owen Publishers

Roll up! Roll up! See the wondrous new face of Circus Mania, 250 years in the making! Full of the remarkable tales of circus life that made it a classic on its first outing. Learn about the origins of the circus from Roman times, to the colourful characters that make the circus the international phenomenon it is today. Circus Mania 2.0 is bigger, better and couldn't be timelier. Two hundred and fifty years after Philip Astley invented the circus it has never been more diverse and captivating, the global success of the spectacular Cirque du Soleil just one testament to its enduring and universal appeal. In Britain alone there are traditional family circuses for kids and arty shows for adults, circuses in tents and circuses in theatres, circuses with animals and circuses without, the Circus of Horrors for clubbers, the comedy-based Circus Hilarious and cabaret-style hybrids on the burlesque circuit and this form of entertainment is popular around the world. What all circuses have in common are the extraordinary skills, dedication and lifestyle of those involved a unique strain of performers who blend the discipline of sports stars with the razzmatazz of showbiz; itinerant entertainers who have often had circus blood in their families for generations; world-class gymnasts who risk death twice daily, serve on the tea stand in between shows and help take down the big top afterwards. Circus Mania is a journey into this unique world, each chapter an access-all-areas pass to a different circus, talking to the trapeze flyers, clowns, animal trainers and showmen about their lives, work and customs and offering insight into the development of this traditional entertainment from the earliest times.

A memoir of enlightenment, politics, commerce, arts and science, written in 1868 during a time of revolution.

Mr Blettsworthy on Rampole Island strongly recalls The Island of Dr. Moreau and is therefore Wells at his best and most fantastic. Being the Story of a Gentleman of Culture and Refinement who suffered Shipwreck and saw no Human Beings other than Cruel and Savage Cannibals for several years. How he beheld Megatheria alive and made some notes of their Habits. How he became a Sacred Lunatic. How he did at last escape in a Strange Manner from the Horror and Barbarities of Rampole Island in time to fight in the Great War, and how afterwards he came near returning to that Island for ever. With much Amusing and Edifying Matter concerning Manners, Customs, Beliefs, Warfare, Crime, and a Storm at Sea. Concluding with some Reflections upon Life in General and upon these Present Times in Particular.

Ahead of the global threats and tragedies of today is a common barrier to their solution - it is the spirit that has defined the age we live in: competition. The Simultaneous Policy Solution, the 'SIMPOL Solution', shows us how through cooperation we can overcome the problems we face today and tomorrow.

Originally published in French as La forece de dire non in 2012.

Paperback edition of this major literary biography of H.G. Wells. 'An excellent biography: authoritative, comprehensive and crisply written' David Lodge.

First full biography of an international figure, recently in the news after her successful libel case against Andrew Marry, who described her as a terrorist in The Making of Modern Britain Internationally famous for starting one of the first women's refuges in the modern world, Erin Pizzey is a controversial but hugely-respected activist with enemies on the left and the right, a pioneering figure in the maelstrom of seventies politics, and a key witness of the era. Here, she tells her story in full for the first time. The daughter of a diplomat, Erin Pizzey was born in China in 1939. One of her formative experiences was seeing her parents and brother being put under house arrest by the Maoists in 1949. This instilled a hatred of totalitarian regimes and for a short time Pizzey even worked for MI6 in Hong Kong. Once relocated in the UK, Pizzey was soon swept up by sixties radicalism and the early days of the emerging Women's Liberation Movement. Opening a small community center for maltreated women in Chiswick in 1971 was to bring Pizzey to the front line of what was becoming a national issue in a time when feminists were still treated with hostility and derision by right-wing figures, but also when left-wing radicals scorned anyone, like Pizzey, who put humanity before ideology. By the mid-1970s, Pizzey found herself under bomb threat and picketed by feminists for allowing men to staff refuges: this led to a long exile from the UK where she kept up her activities and achieved international recognition, while also reinventing herself as a best-selling writer. Erin Pizzey's life and trials have been unique; her story is a compelling one, vital to any understanding of a more revolutionary age and burning issues that still resonate today.

Cocteau's breakthrough novel on the horrors of World War I. Too young to fight, Thomas assumes a noble ancestry, adds a few extra years to his age, and becomes a soldier. In this guise, he meets the society star Princess de Bormes and her impressionable daughter Henriette. While the princess pursues charity work with the wounded, Henriette falls in love with Guillaume. However, Guillaume, resplendent in army uniform and issued with a shiny revolver, is lost like a child in a fantasy land of their own creation. At the novel's denouement, he clings to his imposture, but in mind, if not body, he has grasped the real meaning of war. This visionary novel is a "hymn to the cult of youth" in which World War I battlefields become an exaggerated spectacle where fiction and reality are inseparable.