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Gilded Age in the USA - Edith Wharton and her home, The Mount.
Edith Newbold Jones (b1862) grew up in a privileged Massachusetts society that barred women from achieving anything other than a suitable marriage. Her education was limited since she never went to...
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Australia's Flying Kangaroo: a history of Qantas
Three men believed that aviation could benefit the outback communities of rural Queensland. They were Hudson Fysh (1895-1974), Paul McGinness (1896-1952) and Fergus McMaster (1879-1950). Based on...
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Stairway to heaven - Dante-inspired architecture in Buenos Aires
In my Gap Year programme abroad in 1966, there were 13 English speakers and 110 Spanish speakers, so I had to learn enough Spanish to survive. And quickly! The reward would be that eventually I could...
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Les Darcy - Australia's greatest sporting hero or vilified WW1 shirker?
James Les Darcy (1895-1917) was born near Maitland in NSW, one of ten children of a struggling Irish Catholic family. Leaving primary school in 1907, Les worked then was apprenticed at 15 to a local...
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A stately home, sex, class & power: the Profumo Affair
The Cliveden House land in the Chiltern Hills Bucks was owned by Geoffrey de Clyveden in 1237. By 1300 it had passed to his son William who owned mills along the tree-less chalk escarpment high above...
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A poet's life in books and film - Emily Dickinson
The film A Quiet Passion depicts the poet Emily Dickinson entirely inside her home. Before seeing the film, I needed to understand Emily's inner life & family experience. Thank you Biography.Let's...
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tv's "Granchester" - the cleric and the detective
Anglican Canon Sidney Chambers (played by James Norton) had had a very tough WW2 with the tank regiment of the Scot Guards. After the war, he resumed civilian life and resilient faith, soon living as a...
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Friedrich Drumpf and Fred Trump in business and building
Friedrich Drumpf (1869-1918) grew up in Kallstadt in rural southwest Germany, with a regular income but no savings. His father had died when Friedrich was a young school boy so there was no support...
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Louise Brooks: sublime silent film star in 1929
Praterstrasse in Leopoldstadt was a thriving cultural scene and business district in Vienna. The Nestroyhof Theatre that was financed, designed, owned and patronised by the most acculturated Austrian...
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Selling Alaska - Russia, USA, Canada
From 1725, when Russian Czar Peter the Great sent Vitus Bering to explore the Alaskan coast, Russia started to focus on the region. So it surprised no-one that into the C19th, Russian Alaska became...
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3 fake Brett Whiteley paintings: the nation’s biggest art fraud?
Australia's most famous modern artist, Brett Whiteley, married Wendy Julius in 1962; their only child Arkie (1964-2001) became a talented actress. After the traumatic law case over her late father's...
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Who should own the Koh i Noor Diamond - Britain, India, Pakistan, Iran or...
Britain and India are not the only nations making claim to the amazing Koh-i-Noor diamond. Half the nations in Central Asia have been, or will be in court over this treasure.Up until 1304 the diamond...
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Mae West - anyone for sex?!
Mae West (1893–1980) was born in Brooklyn, the daughter of a professional boxer. She made her first appearance in Vaudeville at 14, under the name Baby Mae. But although she always wanted to work in...
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Harold Holt - 50 years since the Australian PM disappeared
Harold Holt (1908–1967) completed high school in Melbourne and a law degree at Melbourne University. Holt worked as a solicitor, and pursued his interests in sport and politics. He won a seat in...
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Josef Stalin's cult of personality
Edvard Radzinsky wrote Stalin: The First In-depth Biography in 1997. From the archives, he told the story of Stalin's search for total domination, first within the Communist Party and then across the...
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Nancy Wake - the woman the Gestapo called the White Mouse
Nancy Wake (1912-2011) was born in the New Zealand city of Wellington, last child of Charles Augustus Wake and Ella Rosieur. The family moved to Sydney when Nancy was a toddler. Shortly afterwards,...
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Italian Catholic chapel built by POWs on remote Orkney
In 1939 the German U-boat U47, under the command of Lt Gunther Prien, slipped undetected into Scapa Flow. Prien launched a torpedo attack on the battleship HMS Royal Oak which was lying at anchor in...
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"Hot Milk" by Deborah Levy - short listed for the 2016 Man Booker Prize
Born in South Africa in 1959, Deborah Levy’s family exiled themselves to London in 1968 as opponents of Apartheid. She started writing poems, plays and novels in the 1980s. Her 2011 novel, Swimming...
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A River Runs Through It - a moving American book and film
Both the book and film A River Runs Through It were set in Missoula Montana. The Maclean brothers, Norman 1902-90 (Craig Sheffer) and Paul 1906–38 (Brad Pitt), lived a rural life in the fresh air of...
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Contested history in films - "The Birth of a Nation"
British historian Suzannah Lipscomb was interested in how film makers did, or did not analyse historical evidence accurately in their films. A review of David Rieff’s book In Praise of Forgetting was...
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