Cecil Louis Troughton Smith, known by his pen name Cecil Scott "C. S." Forester, was an English novelist known for writing tales of naval warfare, such as the 12-book Horatio Hornblower series depicting a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic Wars.
Marie-Henri Beyle, better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Best known for the novels Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme, he is highly regarded for the acute analysis of his characters' psychology and considered one of the early and foremost practitioners of realism. A self-proclaimed egotist, he coined the same characteristic in his characters' "Beylism".
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of conflicts fought between the First French Empire under Napoleon Bonaparte (1804–1815) and a fluctuating array of European coalitions. The wars originated in political forces arising from the French Revolution (1789–1799) and from the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802), and produced a period of French domination over Continental Europe. The wars are categorised as seven conflicts, five named after the coalitions that fought Napoleon, plus two named for their respective theatres; the War of the Third Coalition, War of the Fourth Coalition, War of the Fifth Coalition, War of the Sixth Coalition, War of the Seventh Coalition, the Peninsular War, and the French invasion of Russia.
War and Peace is a literary work by Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the work mixes fictional narrative with chapters discussing history and philosophy. An early version was published serially beginning in 1865, after which the entire book was rewritten and published in 1869. It is regarded, with Anna Karenina, as Tolstoy's finest literary achievement and remains an internationally praised classic of world literature.
Bernard Cornwell is a British-American author of historical novels and a history of the Waterloo Campaign. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe. He has also written The Saxon Stories, a series of 13 novels about the making of England.
Jeanette Winterson is an English author.
Le Rouge et le Noir is a historical psychological novel in two volumes by Stendhal, published in 1830. It chronicles the attempts of a provincial young man to rise socially beyond his modest upbringing through a combination of talent, hard work, deception, and hypocrisy. He ultimately allows his passions to betray him.
Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, has become a worldwide cultural icon generally associated with tactical brilliance, ambition, and political power. His distinctive features and costume have made him a very recognisable figure in popular culture.
George Payne Rainsford James, was an English novelist and historical writer, the son of a physician in London. He was for many years British Consul at various places in the United States and on the Continent. He held the honorary office of British Historiographer Royal during the last years of William IV's reign.
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a novel by Jeanette Winterson published in 1985 by Pandora Press. It is a coming-of-age story about a lesbian who grows up in an English Pentecostal community. Key themes of the book include transition from youth to adulthood, complex family relationships, same-sex relationships, organised religion and the concept of faith.
Katherine is a 1954 historical novel by American author Anya Seton. It tells the story of the historically important, 14th-century love affair in England between the eponymous Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the third surviving son of King Edward III.
Lesbian literature is a subgenre of literature addressing lesbian themes. It includes poetry, plays, fiction addressing lesbian characters, and non-fiction about lesbian-interest topics. A similar term is sapphic literature, encompassing works that feature love between women that are not necessarily lesbian.
Alia Mamdouh is an Iraqi novelist, author, and journalist living in exile in Paris, France.
Great Moments in Aviation is a 1994 British romantic drama film set on a 1950s passenger liner. The film follows Gabriel Angel, a young Caribbean aviator who falls in love with the forger Duncan Stewart on her journey to England. Stewart is pursued by his nemesis Rex Goodyear, and the group are supported by Dr Angela Bead and Miss Gwendolyn Quim, retired missionaries who become lovers during the voyage.
The Battle is a historical novel by the French author Patrick Rambaud that was first published in 1997. The English translation by Will Hobson appeared in 2000. The book describes the 1809 Battle of Aspern-Essling between the French Empire under Napoleon and the Austrian Empire. The action in the novel follows closely historical observations and descriptions as seen from the French perspective. La Bataille is the first book of a trilogy by Rambaud about the decline of Napoleon, describing his first personal defeat in a European battle; the other two books cover Napoleon’s defeat in Russia in The Retreat and his banishment at Elba in Napoleon’s Exile.
The Stone Gods is a novel written by Jeanette Winterson. Published in the year 2007, the novel is a post-apocalyptic, postmodern, dystopian love story, with themes of corporate government control, the harshness of war, artificial intelligence, and technology. The novel is self-referential as characters make inter-textual references, while certain characters’ story arcs repeat. The novel aims to warn against history's tendency to repeat itself, as well as humanity's inability to learn from past mistakes.
The Napoleonic Wars were a defining event of the early 19th century, and inspired many works of fiction, from then until the present day.
The Hogarth Shakespeare project was an effort by Hogarth Press to retell works by William Shakespeare for a more modern audience. To do this, Hogarth commissioned well-known writers to select and re-imagine the plays.
Quichotte is a 2019 novel by Salman Rushdie. It is his fourteenth novel, published on 29 August 2019 by Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom and Penguin Books India in India. It was published in the United States on 3 September 2019 by Random House. Inspired by Miguel de Cervantes's classic novel Don Quixote, Quichotte is a metafiction that tells the story of an addled Indian-American man who travels across America in pursuit of a celebrity television host with whom he has become obsessed.
Frankissstein: A Love Story is a 2019 novel by Jeanette Winterson. It was published on 28 May 2019 by Jonathan Cape. The novel employs speculative fiction and historical fiction to reimagine Mary Shelley's classic novel Frankenstein (1818). The story switches between Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein in Geneva, Switzerland in 1816 and the story of Ry Shelley, a transgender doctor and Victor Stein, a transhumanist, who become involved in the world of artificial intelligence and cryonics in present-day Brexit-era Britain.
