Two Victorian travellers' eye-witness accounts of their adventures while journeying through Japan. Filled with entertaining anecdotes, this special ebook edition is illustrated with dozens of... More > beautiful and evocative photos (many hand-tinted), early postcards; antique prints and engravings. Landscapes, portraits, rural, domestic and urban scenes of traditional daily life, local ceremonies and customs, including marriage, crime and punishment, royal court life, festivals, hara-kiri suicide.
In her letters from 1878, published as Unbeaten Tracks In Japan, Isabella Bird complained about the "abominable weather" and the "insect pests". In Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs, by Lieutenant J.M.W. Silver, from 1867, we discover the secrets of mixed bath houses, funerals, and criminal executions.
This joint re-edition is illustrated with dozens of beautiful and fascinating hand-tinted photos from the period, specially selected, plus prints and engravings.< Less
A collection of infamous classics of drug literature: short stories, essays, journalism, medical reports, poetry, visions, with dozens of vintage 19th-century illustrations (prints, photos,... More > postcards...), capturing the heady essence of Victorian drug culture.
From the Romantic opium-eaters, to the Bohemian hashish fanatics, intrinsically linked to the underground art and literature of the era. Narcotics, opium dens, bhang, cannabis, hasheesh eaters, water pipes, halluncingens and hallucinations, dreamy afternoons and hedonistic nights of absinthe, reefer cigarettes and sex. Entertaining, often erotic... dare we say addictive?
A literary anthology of authors including Aleister Crowley, Rudyard Kipling, Sir Richard Burton, de Quincey, Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Bayard Taylor, Baudelaire, Dickens, and Louisa May Alcott! 224 pages - hours of giddy entertainment!
Available as large-format (US Letter) perfect bound paperback, or as a PDF ebook to download! **Revised and improved edition, Feb 2008! **< Less
Forgotten & Forbidden Foods From Old Cook Books!
This extraordinary recipe book will make your eyes water, and, possibly, your mouth! Even if you're dubious about the eating scrapple or... More > head-cheese, it makes a highly entertaining read. Learn how our not-so distant ancestors found a use for just about every part of the cow, sheep, and pig, plus a long list of more unusual species... Plenty of ideas for jaded dinner party hosts with demanding guests!
This cookery compilation makes a great novelty gift for epicures and gourmets, a wonderful talking-point for the bookshelf, but also contains invaluable, comprehensive reference material for serious cooks who want to stretch their horizons... How to skin skunk or eel, make a squirrel pie, or bear hams... Here's how to make your own haggis, chitterlings, fagots, black pudding, prepare sweetbreads... plus Peculiar Puddings, Surprising Soups, Sickroom Feasts, Fowl Ideas, plus the proper way to serve molluscs, reptiles and amphibians...< Less
A treasure-chest from the golden age of travel writing. Annotated, humorous highlights from over 100 eye-witness travel accounts (diaries, journals, collected letters, reports, travel guides) written... More > between 1750 and 1918. English and American authors, including some of the most famous literary figures of the 18th and 19th centuries: Dickens, RL Stevenson, James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain, Henry James, plus an eccentric host of itinerant parsons, amateur antiquarians, well-heeled aristocrats and ladies of independent spirit. A huge read.
Long before Peter Mayle grumbled his way through A Year in Provence, or Stephen Clarke traced his slippery path through A Year in the Merde, travellers from the English-speaking world were amazed by the curious customs, the strange sights, sounds and smells of France. Complaining about the waiters, the plumbing, admiring the cheeseboards and pretty girls...
Now available as large-format (A4) perfect bound paperback, or as a PDF ebook to download!< Less
In the ancient shire town of Summerwell, trade in occult goods is brisk. Something has been awakened in their midst. A great crime from long ago. And a lonely child.
The town's sleepy face belies... More > its buried powers.
Why are its children afraid of the dark? What do they see that adults cannot, or will not?
Who is the terrible Gimlet Boy, who appears to each new generation, but never grow old?
Only the town’s children can glimpse his terrible secret. He knows your fears and phobias
– crawling stinging things, burial alive, suffocation, unspeakable terrors…
The adults turn a blind eye, try to forget. Most of them.
It’s time to awaken your childhood fears. Something very ancient. And something very young.
Neither possess a language, both have a message. The Gimlet Boy wants you to come out to play…
in the dark place, under the stones…
Everything you wanted to forget. Everything you thought you’d forgotten.
It is time to apply the old remedies. An eye for an eye...< Less
The Original Pre-Prohibition American Cocktail Bible, from 1917! A forerunner to the Savoy Cocktail Book...
Classic alcoholic cocktail recipes, easy to prepare, delightful to drink. Includes... More > instructions for how to prepare mix, shake, stir and serve famous blends including Absinthe, Juleps, Gibsons, Toddies, Cobblers, Stingers and many more. Essential reference and talking point for every barman, put it on your shelf next to the gin and whisky bottles, or give it as an original gift to your favorite drinking companion.
Available as a printed paperback edition, or to download in attractive PDF ebook format.< Less
Seafood and Cocktail Recipes from Europe's Atlantic Coast
A humorous, light-hearted theme recipe collection, inspired by the heritage of pirates, corsairs and buccaneers! Recipes for your starving... More > crew include Captain Haddock's Kedgeree... Jack Tar's Eeels, Mock Whale-meat Stew... and plenty of potent mixes for authentic "Dutch Courage".
Illustrated with old engravings and photos.
Great for armchair admirals or for party planning!< Less
A historical novel featuring Oscar Wilde and his decadent friends in Dieppe, 1897...
May 1897. A suicidal Wilde, released from two years in prison, arrives in Dieppe, Normandy, under the assumed name... More > of Sebastian Melmoth. On the same ferry is Captain Drake Hastings, sent by British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury, ostensibly to “protect national interests”, and to investigate conspiracies amongst the large British ex-pat community in Dieppe.
But there's worse beneath the skin of the chic resort than mere political intrigue: against a “Naughty Nineties” backdrop of disease and drugs, of vice and violence, a serial killer appears to be responsible for the abductions and murders of several English prostitutes working in the town, as well as the detectives sent by mysterious third parties. Crimes which echo those of the Whitechapel (Ripper) murders of 1888, and others Hastings recalls from his tour of duty in India< Less
Two Victorian travellers' eye-witness accounts of their adventures while journeying through Japan. Filled with entertaining anecdotes, this special ebook edition is illustrated with dozens of... More > beautiful and evocative photos (many hand-tinted), early postcards; antique prints and engravings. Landscapes, portraits, rural, domestic and urban scenes of traditional daily life, local ceremonies and customs, including marriage, crime and punishment, royal court life, festivals, hara-kiri suicide. In her letters from 1878, published as Unbeaten Tracks In Japan, Isabella Bird complained about the "abominable weather" and the "insect pests". In Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs, by Lieutenant J.M.W. Silver, from 1867, we discover the secrets of mixed bath houses, funerals, and criminal executions. This joint re-edition is illustrated with dozens of beautiful and fascinating hand-tinted photos from the period, specially selected, plus prints and engravings.< Less
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