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  The Richmond Theater Fire: Early America's First Great Disaster

  On the day after Christmas in 1811, the state of Virginia lost its governor and almost one hundred citizens in a devastating nighttime fire that consumed a Richmond playhouse. During the second act of a melodramatic tale of bandits, ghosts, and murder, a small fire kindled behind the backdrop. Within minutes, it raced to the ceiling timbers and enveloped the audience in flames. The tragic Richmond Theater fire would inspire a national commemoration and become its generation's defining disaster. A vibrant and bustling city, Richmond was synonymous with horse races, gambling, and frivolity. The gruesome fire amplified the capital's reputation for vice and led to an upsurge in antitheater criticism that spread throughout the country and across the Atlantic. Clerics in both America and abroad urged national repentance and denounced the stage, a sentiment that nearly destroyed theatrical entertainment in Richmond for decades. Local churches, by contrast, experienced a rise in attendance and became increasingly evangelical. In The Richmond Theater Fire, the first book about the event and its aftermath, Meredith Henne Baker explores a forgotten catastrophe and its wide societal impact. The story of transformation comes alive through survivor accounts of slaves, actresses, ministers, and statesmen. Investigating private letters, diaries, and sermons, among other rare or unpublished documents, Baker views the event and its outcomes through the fascinating lenses of early nineteenth-century theater, architecture, and faith, and reveals a rich and vital untold story from America's past.

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  Female Fortune: The Anne Lister Diaries, 1833-36: Land, Gender and Authority: New Edition

  A unique and thrilling insight into the brilliant mind of Anne Lister Sally Wainwright, creator of Gentleman JackFemale Fortune is the book which inspired Sally Wainwright to write Gentleman Jack, now a major drama series for the BBC and HBO.Lesbian landowner Anne Lister inherited Shibden Hall in 1826. She was an impressive scholar, fearless traveller and successful businesswoman, even developing her own coalmines. Her extraordinary diaries, running to 4-5 million words, were partly written in her own secret code and recorded her love affairs with startling candour. The diaries were included on UNESCOs Memory of the World Register in 2011.Jill Liddingtons classic edition of the diaries tells the story of how Anne Lister wooed and seduced neighbouring heiress Ann Walker, who moved in to live with Anne and her family in 1834. Politically active, Anne Lister door-stepped her tenants at the 1835 Election to vote Tory. And socially very ambitious, she employed architects to redesign both the Hall and the estate.Yet Ann Walker had an inconvenient number of local relatives, suspicious of exactly how Anne Lister could pay for all her grand improvements. Tensions grew to a melodramatic crescendo when news reached Shibden of the pair being burnt in effigy.This 2022 edition includes a fascinating Afterword on the recent discovery of Ann Walkers own diary. Female Fortune is essential reading for those who watched Gentleman Jack and want to know more about the extraordinary woman that was Anne Lister.

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  Defy or Defend: A Delightfully Deadly Novel , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 467min

  New York Times best-selling author Gail Carriger brings you a charming story of love, espionage, and Gothic makeovers set in her popular Parasolverse. Narrated by the wonderful Emma Newman.Spy...Dimity Plumleigh-Teignmott, code name Honey Bee, is the War Office's best and most decorative fixer. She's sweet and chipper, but oddly stealthy, and surprisingly effective given the right incentives.Versus knight... Sir Crispin Bontwee was knighted for his military service, but instead of retiring, he secretly went to work for the War Office. Mostly he enjoys his job, except when he must safeguard the Honey Bee. Neither of them are vampire experts, but when Nottingham Hive goes badly Goth, only Dimity can stop their darkness from turning bloody. And only Crispin can stop an enthusiastic Dimity from death by vampire.In a battle for survival (and wallpaper), Dimity must learn that not all that sparkles is good, while Cris discovers he likes honey a lot more than he thought. Spinning off from the Finishing School series, featuring deadly ladies of quality, this story stands alone but chronologically follows Poison or Protect. It's Cold Comfort Farm meets Queer Eye meets What We Do In the Shadows from the author of the Parasol Protectorate books, perfect for fans of Julia Quinn, Jodi Taylor, or Meljean Brook.Delicate sensibilities? Contains fraternizing vampires and one very curious young lady, who asks about it, sometimes in detail, but mostly in retrospect. May also involve excessive use of velvet, melodramatic poetry, and the strategic application of interpretive ballet. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Emma Newman. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/198630/bk_acx0_198630_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  I Want to Live: The Story of Madhubala , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 410min

  Madhubala - the very name conjures up vivid images of a love goddess possessing bewitching beauty, dazzling radiance, subtle sensuality and, above all, a tantalizing screen presence. Her ‘reel life’ histrionic performances held (and continue to hold) audiences/viewers entranced. Her talent was phenomenal, and she could literally glide through a movie, whatever be the role. She could convey an impressive array of emotions with her eloquent eyes and facial expressions without resorting to melodramatic contortions. Tragedy, romance, comedy, drama, and what have you - she could take everything in her stride, exquisitely and flawlessly, as convincingly proved by superhits such as Mahal, Tarana, Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi and the magnum opus Mughal-e-Azam. All this she achieved despite a major heart disease, which assumed serious proportions as her career soared. This volume presents a fascinating panorama not only of the ‘reel life’ Madhubala but also of the ‘real life’ Madhubala, who was an extremely compassionate and caring human being, but lived in the shadow of her dominant father. The author recounts her captivating saga, right from her first film - Basant (1942), as a child star, up to the magnificent Mughal-e-Azam (1960) and beyond. Enthralling cameos from her masterpieces such as Mahal, Mr & Mrs 55 and Amar are depicted in graphic detail. Also, all the drama involved in her love affair with Dilip Kumar, which culminated in intense acrimony, has been poignantly portrayed. The last few years of her life were spent in virtual solitude in spite of her being married to Kishore Kumar, and death, in a way, came as a release for her. ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Shernaz Patel. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/adbl/052889/bk_adbl_052889_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  The Secret Agent , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 567min

  Exclusively from Audible The Secret Agent is based on an actual attempt made in 1894 to blow up the Greenwich Observatory. A labyrinth of greed, corruption, and betrayal, it is the most darkly humorous of all Conrad's tales. It follows a European secret agent, Adolf Verloc, 'a London shop owner' with anarchist leanings who becomes reluctantly involved in a plot to blow up the Greenwich Observatory. Full of great characters, melodramatic irony and psychological intrigue the tale is far from simple, involving politicians, policemen, foreign diplomats and London's fashionable society. This classic was written at a time when terrorist activity was increasing. Due to its themes of anarchism, espionage, and terrorism, the book still retains great interest from its audience and was regularly cited by the American media after the September 11 attacks. The New York Times described it as acquiring 'a kind of cult status as the classic novel for the post-9/11 age.' Though the story did not attain popularity during Conrad's lifetime it is still considered to be one of his finest novels. Narrator Biography Having studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, David Horovitch has had a television career spanning over 40 years. One of his most notable roles was in 1984 as Detective Inspector Slack in the first BBC Miss Marple adaptation The Body in the Library. Due to the success of his character, he returned for four Christmas specials. He has had roles in other shows such as Just William (1994), Foyle’s War (2002) and Wire in the Blood (2005) as well as film appearances in The Young Victoria (2009), 102 Dalmatians (2000), The Infiltrator (2016) and Mike Leigh’s Mr Turner (2014). A long time star of the stage, in 2015 he played the role of George Frideric Handel in All the Angels by Nick Drake at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. As ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: David Threlfall. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/bbcw/002318/bk_bbcw_002318_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 925min

  From New Yorker staff writer and best-selling author of The Nine and The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson, the definitive account of the kidnapping and trial that defined an insane era in American history.  On February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst, a sophomore in college and heiress to the Hearst family fortune, was kidnapped by a ragtag group of self-styled revolutionaries calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army. The already sensational story took the first of many incredible twists on April 3, when the group released a tape of Patty saying she had joined the SLA and had adopted the nom de guerre “Tania.”     The weird turns of the tale are truly astonishing — the Hearst family trying to secure Patty’s release by feeding all the people of Oakland and San Francisco for free; the bank security cameras capturing “Tania” wielding a machine gun during a robbery; a cast of characters including everyone from Bill Walton to the Black Panthers to Ronald Reagan to F. Lee Bailey; the largest police shoot-out in American history; the first breaking news event to be broadcast live on television stations across the country; Patty’s year on the lam, running from authorities; and her circuslike trial, filled with theatrical courtroom confrontations and a dramatic last-minute reversal, after which the term “Stockholm syndrome” entered the lexicon.       The saga of Patty Hearst highlighted a decade in which America seemed to be suffering a collective nervous breakdown. Based on more than a hundred interviews and thousands of previously secret documents, American Heiress thrillingly recounts the craziness of the times (there were an average of 1,500 terrorist bombings a year in the early 1970s). Toobin portrays the lunacy of the half-baked radicals of the SLA and the toxic mix of sex, politics, and violence that swept up Patty Hearst and re-creates her melodramatic trial. American Heiress examines the life of a yo ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Paul Michael. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/rand/004528/bk_rand_004528_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  Secret Agent X #7 September, 1934 , Hörbuch, Digital, ungekürzt, 305min

  His true face unknown, his identity forever buried in a secret government file, Secret Agent "X" came back from the dead to take on the sinister sadists, and evil extortionists, who prey on innocent Americans. A master of disguise who carries a non-lethal gas gun, "X" the unknown is backed by a cabal of wealthy citizens, and is answerable only to the shadowy K-9 in Washington. Tentacles of terror reached over the country, spreading like a hideous blight through the cities of America. The Underworld, welded together under the secret symbol of a monster of crime, was organized as never before. And Secret Agent "X," master man-hunter, went up against a genius of crime, who stooped even to the ghastly horrors of medieval torture. The enigma of enigmas, Secret Agent "X" has been deputized by a high government official to battle the darkest, most diabolical enemies of America, before they sink their poisonous fangs into the nation's healthy core. Faceless and unsung, "X" infiltrates these threats in a bewildering array of disguises. Writer Paul Chadwick communicated the essence of the series with the horrific titles of his novels. Chadwick specialized in telling melodramatic mystery yarns, saturated in an atmosphere of impending doom. The pulp editors called these menace stories. Eventually, these thrillers evolved into sub-genre known as weird menace. In Secret Agent "X", a cloud of diabolical danger hangs over the heads of every innocent character, until "X", using his fists, his gas gun, or his loyal operatives, shatters the threat for all time. No one knew who Secret Agent "X" really was. Not his readers. Not his editors. Not even his writer, conceivably. To this day in the 21st Century, his true identity is still a deep mystery. That's keeping a secret! Follow the Man of a Thousand Faces, as he confronts the menace of Octopus of Crime, ripped from the pages of Secret Agent "X" magazine, September 1934 and read ungekürzt. Language: English. Narrator: Milton Bagby. Audio sample: https://samples.audible.de/bk/acx0/092785/bk_acx0_092785_sample.mp3. Digital audiobook in aax.

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  Dashiell Hammett: Complete Novels

  In a few years of extraordinary creative energy, Dashiell Hammett invented the modern American crime novel. In the words of Raymond Chandler, "Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse. . . . He put these people down on paper as they were, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes." Beginning as a prolific contributor to the pulp magazines of the 1920s, he succeeded during his brief career in making his kind of crime fiction a crucial part of the fabric of American writing: a genre that did not evade reality but rather embodied the grittiness and harshness of modern urban life. The five novels that Hammett published between 1929 and 1934, collected here in one Library of America volume, have become part of modern American culture, creating archetypal characters and establishing the ground rules and characteristic tone for a whole tradition of hardboiled writing. Drawing on his own experiences as a Pinkerton detective, Hammett gave a harshly realistic edge to novels that were at the same time infused with a spirit of romantic adventure. His lean and deliberately simplified prose won admiration from such contemporaries as Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner. Each novel is distinct in mood and structure. Red Harvest (1929) epitomizes the violence and momentum of his Black Mask stories about the anonymous detective the Continental Op. In this raucous and nightmarish evocation of political corruption and gang warfare in a western mining town (modeled on Butte, Montana) nicknamed "Poisonville," the Op takes Machiavellian pleasure in pitting one faction against another to bring about their mutual destruction. The Op returns in The Dain Curse (1929) to preside over a more ornately melodramatic tale involving jewel theft, drugs, and a mysterious religious cult. With The Maltese Falcon (1930) and its protagonist Sam Spade, Hammett achieved his most enduring popular success. A tightly constructed quest story with an unforgettable cast of eccentric adventurers, it is at the same time shot through with a sense of disillusionment and the arbitrariness of personal destiny. The Glass Key (1931), an exploration of city politics at their most scurrilous, traces intricate patterns of loyalty and betrayal in scenes charged with drama. His last novel, The Thin Man (1934), is a ruefully comic tale distinct from the rest of his work. Paying homage to the traditional mystery form, it is best remembered for its protagonists Nick and Nora Charles, the sophisticated inebriates who would enjoy a long afterlife in the movies. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

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  • Price: 33.99 EUR excl. shipping
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  The Melodramatic Thread

  The Melodramatic Thread - Spectacle and Political Culture in Modern France: ab 17.99 €

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  Melodramatic Voices: Understanding Music Drama

  Melodramatic Voices: Understanding Music Drama: ab 46.49 €

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  • Price: 46.49 EUR excl. shipping

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