Most Popular Books by Victoria Glendinning

Publisher description

From the Whitbread Award-winning biographer and acclaimed author of "Electricity" comes a novel about the seductions of capitalism and love. "Flight" is an absorbing character study, a love story, and a stunning portrait of modern Europe with all its cultural fusions and blurring national identities.

A woman in Tudor England fends for herself after Henry VIII closes her abbey in this historical novel perfect for fans of Wolf Hall and Philippa Gregory. In 1535, England is hardly a wellspring of gender equality; it is a grim and oppressive age where women―even the privileged few who can read and write―have little independence. In The Butcher''s Daughter, it is this milieu that mandates Agnes Peppin, daughter of a simple country butcher, to leave her family home in disgrace and live out her days cloistered behind the walls of the Shaftesbury Abbey. But with her great intellect, she becomes the assistant to the Abbess and as a result integrates herself into the unstable royal landscape of King Henry VIII. As Agnes grapples with the complex rules and hierarchies of her new life, King Henry VIII has proclaimed himself the new head of the Church. Religious houses are being formally subjugated, monasteries dissolved, and the great Abbey is no exception to the purge. The cosseted world in which Agnes has carved out for herself a sliver of liberty is shattered. Now, free at last to be the master of her own fate, she descends into a world she knows little about, using her wits and testing her moral convictions against her need to survive by any means necessary . . . The Butcher''s Daughter is the riveting story of a young woman facing head-on the obstacles carefully constructed against her sex. This dark and affecting novel by award-winning author Victoria Glendinning intricately depicts the lives of women in the sixteenth century in a world dominated by men. "A fresh perspective [of the Tudor Era]. . . . Glendinning''s research convincingly depicts the bustling and frequently ruthless world of Henry VIII''s England." — Library Journal "Psychologically astute . . . and evincing deep knowledge of Tudor-era society. Glendinning thoughtfully explores womanhood''s many facets." — Booklist "Unabashedly feminist . . . elegant, intelligent, compulsively entertaining. . . . [ The Butcher''s Daughter] demonstrates the power of individuals with inner strength and determination to work for change when able to choose a life of their own design." —Foreword Reviews (starred review)

The first biography in decades of the ''Father of Singapore''.

Celebrated novelist, acerbic critic, and journalist without peer, friend and lover of the great and gifted, social and sexual rebel, observer of modern history''s turning points, Rebecca West led one of the great lives of the twentieth century. In this first full-scale biography of Rebecca West, the widely admired biographer Victoria Glendinning captures that life in all its disturbing brilliance and haunting pain.

Victoria Glendinning provides a woman''s view of Anthony Trollope, placing emphasis on family, particularly on his relationship with his mother. But it is Anthony as a husband and lover that intrigues her most. She looks at the nature of his love for his wife, Rose and at his love for Kate Field.

Anthony Trollope has come down to us as the most Victorian of Victorian novelists, who perfected a "bluff, roast-beef kind of Englishness" into high--and immensely popular--art. Glendinning ushers readers into the furthest reaches of Trollope''s work and life to reveal a man of extraordinary depth and liveliness. Photos.

A hugely readable story of sexual intrigue, vanity, nemesis and unexpected death ''There are no grown-ups.'' Everyone in this wickedly entertaining novel, whatever their age, bullies or deceives or adores someone else, in the merciless playgrounds of London flats, country villages, television studios and conferences. At the centre of it all is Leo Ulm, social scientist and media guru, who magnetizes his wives, lovers and friends with his fading brilliance. He obsesses them all, including clear-eyed Clara, though she may often wish he were dead. The god of his own universe, Leo is monstrously vain and arrogant - until something happens which leaves all the women in his life in shock. Then, perhaps, Clara begins to grow up....

An exciting reissue of GLENDINNING''S most critically acclaimed novel

Discusses the life of the Anglo-Irish novelist from her childhood to her Oxford years, from her achievements as a novelist to her conversations with literary friends. -- Dust jacket.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) is an inexhaustibly intriguing figure in literary and political history. He was an ordained clergyman whose enemies thought he did not believe in God. He became a legendary Dean of St. Patrick''s Cathedral in Dublin, and for four intoxicating years he was the intimate of Queen Anne''s chief ministers, acting as their publicist and propagandist. His private life was intense and enigmatic. Two younger women, whom he called Stella and Vanessa, moved to Ireland to be close to him. He made both of them unhappy. Poet, polemicist, pamphleteer, and wit, Swift was the master of shock. His furious satirical responses to the corruption and hypocrisy he saw around him in private and public life have every relevance for our own times. Like his Gulliver in the land of Lilliput, Swift is a problem in perspective and scale. In this entertaining biography, Glendinning takes a literary zoom lens to illuminate this proud and intractable man.