Clark, Peter – The Bell Bookshop

Churchill’s Britain

Emma — Tue, 02 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

More books have been written about Winston Churchill than any modern historical figure, but Peter Clark’s Churchill’s Britain does something quite different. It takes the reader the length and breadth of Britain and Ireland to lesser-known places associated with Churchill’s life. Some are familiar – Blenheim Palace, Chartwell, the Cabinet War Rooms – but we also see his schools, far-flung parliamentary constituencies in Dundee and Epping, the sites of famous speeches, the place he started to paint, the shop he bought his cigars, and the final resting places of his family and close friends. We read about these places in his own words alongside Clark’s insightful analysis and, by visiting sites that made important but less-celebrated contributions to the story of Churchill’s life, we come closer to a full picture. Clark takes us from the site of his father’s marriage proposal to his American future wife on the Isle of Wight to his grave in a country churchyard in Oxfordshire.Each of the eight regions of the United Kingdom is introduced with a map, and the entries cross-referenced. It can be dipped into, consulted by the traveller, or read straight through. However used, Churchill’s Britain provides fascinating and fresh insights into this extraordinary man.

Churchill’s Britain: From the Antrim Coast to the Isle of Wight

Emma — Sun, 20 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

More than half a century after his death, Winston Churchill, the most significant British statesman of the twentieth century, continues to intrigue us. Peter Clark’s book, however, is not merely another Churchill biography. Churchill’s Britain takes us on a geographical journey through Churchill’s life, leading us in Churchill’s footsteps through locations in Britain and Ireland that are tied to key aspects of his biography. Some are familiar-Blenheim Palace, where he was born; Chartwell, his beloved house in the country; and the Cabinet War Rooms, where he planned the campaigns of World War II. But we also are taken to his schools, his parliamentary constituencies, locations of famous speeches, the place where he started to paint, the tobacco shop where he bought his cigars, and the graves of his family and close friends.

Clark brings us close to the statesman Churchill by visiting sites that were important to the story of his long life, from the site where his father proposed to his American mother on the Isle of Wight to his grave in a country churchyard in Oxfordshire. Designed as a gazetteer with helpful regional maps, Churchill’s Britain can be dipped into, consulted by the traveler on a Churchill tour of Britain, or read straight through-and no matter how it’s read, it will deliver fresh insights into this extraordinary man.

Dickens’s London

Emma — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Marking the 150th anniversary of Charles Dickens’s death, Dickens’s London leads us in the footsteps of the author through this beloved city. Few novelists have written so intimately about a place as Dickens wrote about London, and, from a young age, his near-photographic memory rendered his experiences there both significant and in constant focus. Virginia Woolf maintained that “we remodel our psychological geography when we read Dickens,” as he produces “characters who exist not in detail, not accurately or exactly, but abundantly in a cluster of wild yet extraordinarily revealing remarks.” The most enduring “character” Dickens was drawn back to throughout his novels was London itself, in all its aspects, from the coaching inns of his early years to the taverns and watermen of the Thames. These were the constant cityscapes of his life and work.

In five walks through central London, Peter Clark explores “The First Suburbs”-Camden Town, Chelsea, Greenwich, Hampstead, Highgate and Limehouse-as they feature in Dickens’s writing and illuminates the settings of Dickens’s life and his greatest works of journalism and fiction. Describing these storied spaces of today’s central London in intimate detail, Clark invites us to experience the city as it was known to Dickens and his characters. These walks take us through the locations and buildings that he interacted with and wrote about, creating an imaginative reconstruction of the Dickensian world that has been lost to time.