Stella Tillyard - Author
Stella Tillyard's bestselling Aristocrats, which started the vogue for eighteenth-century women's lives, was followed by Citizen Lord, her biography of the Irish rebel Edward Fitzgerald. She reviews for the Sunday Times and is a frequent contributor to Radio 4.
Longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2012. Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 26 May 2011. Tides of War is drenched in an unforgettable atmosphere, from the mantillas and palms of Seville to gas lamps in foggy London. It carries us deep into the anguish of men at war, the taste of freedom offered to the women left behind, the passions of scientists, doctors and inventors and the burning drive of emigres in a society on the cusp of change. As Harriet and James pursue their destinies, facing hope and heartache in equal measure, this stunning novel returns us all to the vivid, lost world of the past.
George IV spent most of his life waiting to become king, first a pleasure-loving and rebellious Prince of Wales during the 60-year reign of his father, George III, and for 10 years as Prince Regent, when his father went mad. The days are very long when you have nothing to do, he once wrote plaintively, but he did his best to fill them with pleasure--women, art, food, wine, fashion, architecture. He presided over the creation of the Regency style, which came to epitomize the era and was, with Charles I, the most artistically literate of all British kings.
'I am an engineer and a measured man of the world. I prefer to weigh everything in the balance, to calculate and to plan. Yet my own heart is going faster than I can now count.' In 1649, Jan Brunt, a Dutchman, arrives in England to work on draining and developing the Great Level, an expanse of marsh in the heart of the fen country. It is here he meets Eliza, whose love overturns his ordered vision and whose act of resistance forces him to see the world differently. Jan flees to the New World, where the spirit of avarice is raging and his skills as an engineer are prized. Then one spring morning a boy delivers a note that prompts him to remember the Fens, and confront all that was lost there.The Great Level is a dramatic and elemental story about two people whose differences draw them together then drive them apart. Jan and Eliza's journeys, like the century they inhabit, are filled with conflict, hard graft and adventure - and see them searching for their own piece of solid ground.
`I am an engineer and a measured man of the world. I prefer to weigh everything in the balance, to calculate and to plan. Yet my own heart is going faster than I can now count.' In 1649, Jan Brunt, a Dutchman, arrives in England to work on draining and developing the Great Level, an expanse of marsh in the heart of the fen country. It is here he meets Eliza, whose love overturns his ordered vision and whose act of resistance forces him to see the world differently. Jan flees to the New World, where the spirit of avarice is raging and his skills as an engineer are prized. Then one spring morning a boy delivers a note that prompts him to remember the Fens, and confront all that was lost there. The Great Level is a dramatic and elemental story about two people whose differences draw them together then drive them apart. Jan and Eliza's journeys, like the century they inhabit, are filled with conflict, hard graft and adventure - and see them searching for their own piece of solid ground.
The sequel to Aristocrats , this tells the story of the headstrong and passionate 18th century Irish revolutionary, Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Son of a duke, heir to estates and influence, Lord Edward died in a Dublin gaol, a rebel and a traitor. Born in 1763, he joined the British army as a teenager, fought in the American War of Independence and was elected to the Irish parliament in 1783. However, his radical sentiments soon showed themselves, through beliefs in the goodness of man and the importance of liberty and equality. Returning to North America with the army in 1787, Lord Edward spent time with the Iroquois and was adopted by them as an Indian chief. Back in Europe he became a disciple of the Republican Thomas Paine, visited revolutionary France and joined the Irish underground in the 1790s.
The sequel to Aristocrats , this tells the story of the headstrong and passionate 18th century Irish revolutionary, Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Son of a duke, heir to estates and influence, Lord Edward died in a Dublin gaol, a rebel and a traitor. Born in 1763, he joined the British army as a teenager, fought in the American War of Independence and was elected to the Irish parliament in 1783. However, his radical sentiments soon showed themselves, through beliefs in the goodness of man and the importance of liberty and equality. Returning to North America with the army in 1787, Lord Edward spent time with the Iroquois and was adopted by them as an Indian chief. Back in Europe he became a disciple of the Republican Thomas Paine, visited revolutionary France and joined the Irish underground in the 1790s.
A fascinating insight into 18th century aristocratic life through the lives of the four Lennox sisters, the great grandchildren of Charles II, whose extraordinary lives spanned the period 1740-1832. Passionate, witty and moving, the voices of the Lennox sisters reach us with immediacy and power, drawing the reader into their remarkable lives, and making this one of the most enthralling historical narratives to appear for many years.