{"title":"W Sydney Robinson","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the world of W. Sydney Robinson, the British author known for his thrilling mysteries and suspenseful tales. A master of plot twists and character development, his books are sure to keep you on the edge of your seat.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"muckraker-book-w-sydney-robinson-9781849542944","title":"Muckraker","description":"Winner of the Political Book Awards 2013 Best Political Biography.  The era of sensational tabloid journalism began in Britain in the summer of 1885 when W. T. Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, ran a newspaper campaign entitled 'The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon'. In a series of flesh-creeping articles, the editor revealed how he had 'purchased' a child of thirteen from her parents for sinister purposes darkly hinted at to the reader. The result was a two-week national panic, culminating in the raising of the age of consent from thirteen to sixteen  -  and the conviction of Stead for kidnapping the child unwittingly at the centre of his story. In this pioneering biography, author W. Sydney Robinson follows Stead from his modest beginnings as the son of a Nonconformist minister in Newcastle to his years of power as an influential London newspaper editor before later being dismissed as a madman for his obsession with the occult and (more unfairly) promoting world peace. He was last seen helping women and children into lifeboats as the Titanic went down. Always sure in the righteousness of his cause, and regarding no methods as too extreme for his ends, Stead remains, in the age of Leveson, both a model and a warning for investigative journalists worldwide.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49512974582033,"sku":"GOR005734216","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49546888282385,"sku":"GOR011211768","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50009501663505,"sku":"GOR007544939","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1849542945.jpg?v=1751249499"},{"product_id":"speak-well-of-me-book-w-sydney-robinson-9781786820433","title":"Speak Well of Me","description":"Sir Ronald Harwood is one of the foremost playwrights and screenplay writers alive today. He is most noted for his plays for the British stage as well as the screenplays for The Dresser (for which he was nominated for an Oscar) and The Pianist, for which he won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He was nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007).  This book is aimed not only at lovers of cinema and theatre, but also readers who are interested in the human struggle of a man who has overcome great obstacles to achieve success in his chosen field. It will explore some of the moral dilemmas which Sir Ronald has faced in his own lifetime, from the guilt of having accepted the apartheid system while growing up in South Africa to his decision to collaborate on two occasions with the controversial film director Roman Polanski.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49514257809681,"sku":"GOR008425058","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52842851991825,"sku":"GOR012873564","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1786820439.jpg?v=1750801543"},{"product_id":"historic-affairs-book-w-sydney-robinson-9781838032463","title":"Historic Affairs","description":"Sir Arthur Bryant, historian and newspaper columnist, was a stalwart defender of the Victorian age. Born in 1899, and raised in the shadow of Buckingham Palace, where his father was an official, he lamented every development of the twentieth century, from motorcars to pop music and television. To his mind, there had been no greater time than when Britain ruled the waves and her society was governed by the traditional values of honour, deference, patriotism and self-restraint.  But behind this facade lurked another, more liberal life as an unlikely Casanova.    Only a handful of ordinary women, including Sir Arthur's two ex-wives, several former secretaries and at least one duchess, were aware that the historian had another, more human side.  In Historic Affairs W. Sydney Robinson pieces together the jigsaw of Sir Arthur's last years, when the veteran womaniser manipulated - and was himself manipulated by - a number of 'muses', including his former secretary, Pamela Street, and Laura, Duchess of Marlborough. Drawing on many thousands of newly-discovered letters and diaries, Robinson portrays a man caught in the chasm between his public image and private passions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49526855074065,"sku":"GOR011739150","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49783682531601,"sku":"GOR011791205","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53148297888017,"sku":"GOR014777948","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1838032460.jpg?v=1751435273"},{"product_id":"muckraker-book-w-sydney-robinson-9781849545853","title":"Muckraker","description":"Winner of the Political Book Awards 2013 Best Political Biography.  The era of sensational tabloid journalism began in Britain in the summer of 1885 when W. T. Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, ran a newspaper campaign entitled 'The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon'. In a series of flesh-creeping articles, the editor revealed how he had 'purchased' a child of thirteen from her parents for sinister purposes darkly hinted at to the reader. The result was a two-week national panic, culminating in the raising of the age of consent from thirteen to sixteen  -  and the conviction of Stead for kidnapping the child unwittingly at the centre of his story. In this pioneering biography, author W. Sydney Robinson follows Stead from his modest beginnings as the son of a Nonconformist minister in Newcastle to his years of power as an influential London newspaper editor before later being dismissed as a madman for his obsession with the occult and (more unfairly) promoting world peace. He was last seen helping women and children into lifeboats as the Titanic went down. Always sure in the righteousness of his cause, and regarding no methods as too extreme for his ends, Stead remains, in the age of Leveson, both a model and a warning for investigative journalists worldwide.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49558945202449,"sku":"GOR005221115","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49572114071825,"sku":"GOR011025593","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50399192056081,"sku":"CIN1849545855A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50765042319633,"sku":"CIN1849545855G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51149625458961,"sku":"GOR006292399","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1849545855.jpg?v=1750963366"},{"product_id":"last-victorians-book-w-sydney-robinson-9781849547161","title":"The Last Victorians","description":"We of this age behold with amazement the sweep and range of the great Victorians.  -  Morning Post, May 1921  Ever since the publication of Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians in 1918 it has been fashionable to ridicule the great figures of the nineteenth century. From the long-reigning monarch herself to the celebrated writers, philanthropists and politicians of the day, the Victorians have been dismissed as hypocrites and frauds  -  or worse. Yet not everyone in the twentieth century agreed with Strachey and his followers. To a handful of eccentrics born during Victoria's reign, the nineteenth century remained the greatest era in human history: a time of high culture for the wealthy, 'improvement' for the poor, and enlightened imperial rule for the 400 million inhabitants of the British Empire. They were, to friend and foe alike, 'the last Victorians'  -  relics of a bygone civilisation. In this daring group biography, W. Sydney Robinson explores the extraordinary lives of four of these Victorian survivors: the 'Puritan Home Secretary', William Joynson-Hicks (1865 - 1932); the 'Gloomy Dean' of St Paul's Cathedral, W. R. Inge (1860 - 1954); the belligerent founder of the BBC, John Reith (1889 - 1971), and the ultra-patriotic popular historian and journalist Arthur Bryant (1899 -  1985). While revealing their manifold foibles and eccentricities, Robinson argues that these figures were truly great  -  even in error.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49581720666385,"sku":"GOR006782635","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53543517159697,"sku":"GOR012584023","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1849547165.jpg?v=1751455352"},{"product_id":"speak-well-of-me-book-w-sydney-robinson-9781350254305","title":"Speak Well of Me","description":"Sir Ronald Harwood (1934-2020) was one of the most prolific playwrights and screenwriters of his generation. His acclaimed play, The Dresser, has been constantly revived since its premiere in 1980 and has been adapted for both cinema and television, most recently the 2015 BBC production starring Sir Anthony Hopkins and Sir Ian McKellen. Harwood’s other notable film adaptations included Roman Polanski’s haunting depiction of life in the Warsaw Ghetto, The Pianist (2002), Baz Luhrmann’s frontier epic, Australia (2008), and Dustin Hoffman’s poignant celebration of old age, Quartet (2012). His many awards included an Oscar for The Pianist and a BAFTA for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007).    Speak Well of Me turns the focus onto Harwood himself. Based on extensive interviews with the playwright during his final years, the biography recounts Harwood’s gradual transformation from lacklustre South African schoolboy to doyen of theatreland and Hollywood. While dissecting each of his major works, the book candidly explores Harwood’s friendships with the likes of Harold Pinter, J. B. Priestley, André Previn, Sir Donald Wolfit (who inspired The Dresser) and, most controversially, Roman Polanski. The result is a biography as gripping and morally complex as one of Harwood’s own dramas.    This new paperback edition includes memoirs and assessments of Harwood by Gyles Brandreth, Sir Tom Courtenay, Lady Antonia Fraser, Frederic Raphael, Sir Antony Sher and the playwright’s oldest friend, Gerald Masters.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49741284016401,"sku":"NGR9781350254305","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1350254304.jpg?v=1751017257"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-w-sydney-robinson.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}