James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist, poet and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. Joyce's novel Ulysses (1922) is a landmark in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in a variety of literary styles, particularly stream of consciousness. Other well-known works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). His other writings include three books of poetry, a play, letters, and occasional journalism.
Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts.
Ulysses is a modernist novel by the Irish writer James Joyce. Parts of it were first serialized in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and the entire work was published in Paris by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, Joyce's fortieth birthday. It is considered one of the most important works of modernist literature and has been called "a demonstration and summation of the entire movement".
Dame Stella Rimington is a British author and former Director General of MI5, a position she held from 1992 to 1996. She was the first female DG of MI5, and the first DG whose name was publicised on appointment. In 1993, Rimington became the first DG of MI5 to pose openly for cameras at the launch of a brochure outlining the organisation's activities.
Tobias George Smollett was a Scottish writer and surgeon. He was best known for writing picaresque novels such as The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748), The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751) and The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771), which influenced later generations of British novelists, including Charles Dickens. His novels were liberally altered by contemporary printers; an authoritative edition of each was edited by Dr O. M. Brack Jr and others.
George Morris Baker, MBE was an English actor and writer. He was best known for portraying Tiberius in I, Claudius, and Inspector Wexford in The Ruth Rendell Mysteries.
Rob Roy (1817) is a historical novel by Walter Scott, one of the Waverley novels. It is probably set in 1715, the year of the second Jacobite rising, and the social and economic background to that event are an important element in the novel, though it is not treated directly. The depiction of Rob Roy bears little relation to the historical figure: "there are two Rob Roys. One lived and breathed. The other is a good story, a lively tale set in the past. Both may be accepted as ‘valid', but they serve different needs and interests."
Elizabeth Bowen CBE was an Irish-British novelist and short story writer notable for her books about the "big house" of Irish landed Protestants as well as her fiction about life in wartime London. In 1958, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature by Russian-American linguist Roman Jakobson.
A war novel or military fiction is a novel about war. It is a novel in which the primary action takes place on a battlefield, or in a civilian setting, where the characters are preoccupied with the preparations for, suffering the effects of, or recovering from war. Many war novels are historical novels.
Roderick Alleyn is a fictional character who first appeared in 1934. He is the policeman hero of the 32 detective novels of Ngaio Marsh. Marsh and her gentleman detective belong firmly in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, although the last Alleyn novel, Light Thickens, was published in 1982.
Lauren Branning is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders. The role was originated by Madeline Duggan, who first appeared on 3 July 2006. Duggan played the role for four years until her exit on 23 June 2010. Three months later, on 27 September 2010, the role was recast to new actress, Jacqueline Jossa. In August 2014, Jossa announced that she was expecting her first child. In December 2014, Jossa filmed her final scenes prior to taking maternity leave, which aired on 24 February 2015, following the show's 30th anniversary celebrations. She returned temporarily on 14 September 2015 for her father's murder trial before departing again on 2 October 2015. Lauren made a permanent return on 27 May 2016. In September 2017, it was announced that Jossa and Lorna Fitzgerald, who plays Lauren's sister Abi, had been axed by executive consultant John Yorke. Jossa finished filming with the show on 11 January 2018, and Lauren departed on 16 February 2018. Lauren returned to the show on 12 December 2022 for the funeral of her step-grandmother Dot Cotton before departing again in the following episode. Lauren made an unannounced appearance alongside Peter Beale during the episode broadcast on 22 June 2023. On 30 September 2023, it was announced Jossa will return to the role in the New Year. Lauren’s return scenes aired on 1 January 2024.
Stella Benson was an English feminist, novelist, poet, and travel writer. She was a recipient of the Benson Medal.
The House in Paris is Elizabeth Bowen's fifth novel. It is set in France and Great Britain following World War I, and its action takes place on a single February day in a house in Paris. In that house, two young children—Henrietta and Leopold—await the next legs of their respective journeys: Henrietta is passing through on her way to meet her grandmother, while Leopold is waiting to meet his mother for the first time. The first and third sections of the novel, both called "The Present," detail what happens in the house throughout the day. The middle section of the book is an imagined chronicle of part of the life of Leopold's mother, Karen Michaelis, revealing the background to the events that occur in Mme Fisher's home on the day.
The Last September is a 1929 novel by the Anglo-Irish writer Elizabeth Bowen, concerning life in Danielstown, Cork during the Irish War of Independence, at a country mansion. John Banville wrote a screenplay based on the novel; the film adaptation was released in 1999.
Clare Consuelo Sheridan was an English sculptor, journalist and writer, known primarily for creating busts for famous sitters and keeping travel diaries. She was a cousin of Sir Winston Churchill, with whom she had enjoyed an amicable relationship, though her support for the October Revolution in 1917 caused them to break ranks politically. She enjoyed travelling around the world; and among her circle of friends were Princess Margaret of Sweden, Lord and Lady Mountbatten, Lady Diana Cooper, Vita Sackville-West and Vivien Leigh.
John Michael Ward Bingham, 7th Baron Clanmorris was a one time MI5 counterspy and an English novelist who published 17 thrillers, detective novels, and spy novels.
The Fallen Sparrow is a 1943 American spy film noir starring John Garfield, Maureen O'Hara, Patricia Morison, and Walter Slezak. It is based on the novel of the same name by Dorothy B. Hughes. Nazi spies pursue an American, John "Kit" McKittrick, a Spanish Civil War veteran in possession of a priceless keepsake, who returns home to find out who murdered his friend. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.
Death in Berlin published in 1955 is a mystery novel by M. M. Kaye. The story, set in early Cold War Berlin, prior to the erection of the Berlin Wall, focuses on Miranda Brand who goes on a one-month vacation to the divided German city. She is invited there by her cousin Robert, a British Army officer stationed in Berlin, and his wife Stella. On the way, Brigadier Brindley relates to a party of British officers and their families - among them Miranda - a WWII story of a fortune in lost diamonds, in which Miranda herself is revealed to be mysteriously involved. This mystery from the past turns out to have very sinister present day implications. Miranda's vacation becomes increasingly ominous, with murders following each other, first on the night train and then in Berlin itself. Much of Berlin is still in ruins, the Cold War is raging and Miranda happens to witness the handover of secret information by a spy. However, the Soviets are not the villains here. They are very much in the background, as are the German inhabitants of Berlin, struggling to rebuild their devastated city. Rather, the devastated Berlin of the early Cold War serves as the backdrop to the lethal jealousies and tensions rending the enclave of British military personnel, their wives and domestic servants. At the explosive ending, Miranda comes close to being murdered herself - by the most unlikely of all suspects.
Stella Fregelius: A Tale of Three Destinies is a 1904 novel by the British writer H. Rider Haggard about a young inventor who falls in love with a mysterious stranger while he is engaged to another woman. As a novelist, Haggard is known primarily for his adventure novels. Among his most widely read and critically acclaimed novels are King Solomon's Mines, Allan Quatermain and She. After his publication of She, Haggard wrote at least one novel a year every year until his death in 1925.
Quartet is Jean Rhys's 1928 debut novel, set in Paris's bohemian café society. Originally published by Chatto & Windus, Quartet was Rhys's first published book other than her short story collection The Left Bank and Other Stories (1927).
