Essential Biographies

Genghis Khan, the thirteenth century emperor, was infamous for his bloodthirsty, ruthless campaigns, but he was also one of the great commanders of history. Though a master of terror - his campaigns in northern China and Iran were accompanied by a level of slaughter that was not seen again until the twentieth century - he was just and generous to his subjects and often magnanimous in victory. His broad, ambitious strategies and elusive tactics were so far ahead of their time that they were acknowledged models for some of the most successful tank commanders of the Second World War. At the beginning of the thirteenth century Genghis Khan united the nomad tribes of Mongolia, turned them into a formidable army and led them to rule over the largest empire ever conquered by a single commander. By the time he died, in 1227, his dominions stretched eastward from the Caspian Sea to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

Queen Victoria is the longest-reigning monarch in British history. In this concise biography, Lady Longford, long recognised as an authority on the subject, gives a full account of Queen Victoria's life and provides her unique assessment of the monarch. David Cannandine hailed her Victoria RI as 'pre-eminent in the genre...the commissed biography that the great Queen never got'. Victoria ascended the throne in 1837 on the death of her uncle William IV. In 1840, she married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and for the next twenty years they were inseperable. Their descendants were to succeed to most of the thrones of Europe. When Albert died in 1861, Victoria's overwhelming grief meant that she virtually withdrew from public life. This perceived dereliction of her duty, coupled with rumours about her relationship with her Scottish ghillie John Brown, led to increasing criticism. Coaxed back into the public eye by Disraeli, she resumed her former enthusiasm for political and constitutional matters with vigour until her death in 1901.

Mao Zedong, first chairman of the People's Republic of China, one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party, and the architect of the Cultural Revolution, was active in Chinese politics for most of his eighty-two years, and became one of the most important revolutionary figures in the twentieth century. He spent the 1920s and 1930s struggling to build the Chinese Communist Party. After the establishment of the People's Republic, he strove to impose his vision of socialism on his impoverished country, convinced that if the power of the people could be harnessed, China could become an economically successful and egalitarian country. The Great Leap Forward which he initiated was, however, a disaster resulting in millions of deaths. Mao used the Cultural Revolution to re-impose his authority; his critics were persecuted and a personality cult was fostered. His 'Little Red Book' sold over 740 million copies. This book offers the reader a powerful insight into the life and work of this intriguing man.

Jane Austen's reputation rests on the six novels she wrote in her short life - enduringly popular novels which have become part of the fabric of English life, and which have reached new audiences through recent dramatisations on screen and stage. This book, which draws on her letters, describes Jane's life in the vicarage at Steventon and later at Bath and Chawton, and her relationships with family and friends - especially her beloved sister, Cassandra, and the engaging Tom Lefroy (who it was rumoured was the love of her life). It also describes the parties and balls in country houses and assembly rooms which she attended and the detail of nineteenth-century life which she so sharply observed and which provided the background to her novels. This book is a pleasure for anyone wanting to understand the life of one of our great novelists.

Charles Dickens was in his own day the most popular novelist who had ever lived, a public figure adored like a present-day pop star. He still holds his place as one of the greatest English writers, an original genius whose novels are an essential link in the canon of English literature. He was also actively involved in the life of his time, campaigning for social and educational reform and sharply critical of contemporary society. This short biography provides an excellent introduction to Dickens, from his disturbed childhood with a traumatic period working in a blacking factory, his instant success as a young writer and his tumultuous acclaim in both England and America, the major novels of the 1850s and '60s and the establishment of Household Words, to the final years as a public performer of his own work.