The Epic Voyage of Thomas Dallam to Constantinople in 1599 and His Extraordinary Time In The Palace And Harem Of The Ottoman Sultan.

Thomas Dallam was a young Lancashire craftsman who got caught up in an adventure that he could never have dreamed of in his wildest imaginings. He was the co-maker of a clockwork organ intended as a gift from Elizabeth I to Sultan Mehmed III, and in 1599, ‘upon verrie short warninge’, was told he must sail with this marvel to Istanbul to install it in the sultan’s palace and demonstrate its workings. The detailed diary of his journey and his time at the Ottoman court forms the basis of this book.

Half An Arch is the compelling autobiography of one of the most distinctive English writers of the late twentieth century [...]

Now the biographer of writer and adventurer Gerald Brenan and American sexologist Alfred Kinsey brings the same rigour, perception and sensitivity to bear on the story of his own life, as he chronicles, vividly but without sentimentality, the brutal decline in the fortunes of the clever and colourful Gathorne-Hardy family in the aftermath of two world wars. (Timewell Press).

Alfred Kinsey was the twentieth century's first scientifically reputable and most influential researcher into sex. His Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (The Kinsey Report), published in 1948, was an explosive bestseller, followed in 1953 by his even more radical statistics on female sexuality.

For this remarkable biography - which forms the basis of a major film - Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy has interviewed in depth Kinsey's remaining family, his close colleagues, friends and lovers. With wit and subtlety he reveals whole new aspects of this complex, heroic, obsessive and ultimately sympathetic man. (Penguin Books)

Two orphaned boys - one Russian (Ivan), and one British (Michael). Ivan is brought up brutally on the bleak rural steppes, while Michael is cosseted by his grandmother in the Home Counties. And yet they coexist in a sort of parallel universe' their lives interconnected, physically in the text, as well as throug a common yearning - to discover their origins and purpose in life and to find elusive romantic and emotional fulfilment. Ivan manages to escape from his past and present to find a new life abroad. He is in almost constant motion, where Michael remains more or less rooted to the spot. His journey of discovery is through a strange, obsessive internal landscape. Gathorne-Hardy combines a rare narrative skill with compassion and humour. (Penguin Books)

The Spanish film South From Granada (Al Sur De Granada) by Fernando Colomo, with Penelope Cruz and Mathew Goode, was based on this beautifully built biography of Gerald Brenan.

Born in 1894 to a well-off military family, Gerard Brenan was expected to follow the family tradition. But he discovered a love of books and an urge to break the mould. After the First World War he went to Spain, where he found the inspiration for his life’s work and began an affair with Dora Carrington. In the 1930s his life changed again, with marriage and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, which inspired his masterpiece The Spanish Labyrinth (1943).

Drawing on long personal acquaintance as well as a wealth of unpublished correspondence, Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy looks unflinchingly at the whole of this remarkable man of letters – from his venturesome spirit to his troublesome sexuality to his literary accomplishment.

This is a thriller about love, exploration, excavation and the perils of being caught up with the Southern italian mafia. "It must be very difficult to have an original thought about Herculaneum." says Catrina, the girl Alex Mayne meets wandering in the city buried by the huge explosion of Vesuvius 2000 years before. In fact, Alex does have a very original idea. When they plan to dig through the skin of lava that covers the old city they uncover treasures beyond the dreams of avarice. But they inadvertently stumble on another underworld -that of the sinister Camorra. Fantastic fiction

The public schools of England have long been praised and reviled in equal measure. Do they perpetuate elites and unjust divisions of social class? Do they improve or corrupt young minds and bodies? Should they be abolished? Do we all wish for this kind of education for our children if we could afford the fees?
JGH’s classic study of Britain’s ‘independent sector’ of schools first appeared in 1977 and still stands as the most widely admired history of the subject, ranging across 1400 years in its spirited investigation. Provocative and comprehensive, witty and revealing, it traces the arc by which schools that were, circa 1900, typically ‘frenziedly repressive about sex, odiously class-conscious and shut off into tight, conventional, usually brutal little total communities’ gradually evolved into acknowledged centres of academic excellence, as keen on science as organised games, ‘fairly relaxed about sex, and moderate in discipline’ – but to which access still ‘depends largely on class and entirely on money.’

This free-floating fantasy, with very modern accessories, is strung on the notion that Chamil Descartes, a rather permanently unattached young man, now finds that he can usurp other identities [...] Chamil, who has these spells, he becomes his cousin James (a rather sterile sort who does research on bats), his psychiatrist, Johannson, a narcissistic young woman, a publisher, and others. While Chamil disintegrates--so does the story, although Mr. Gathorne-Hardy writes quite well and annotates his characters and the contemporary scene with a certain sophisticated shrewdness. (Kirkus Reviews)

First published in 1972, Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy’s The Rise and Fall of the British Nanny became an instant classic of social history – a groundbreaking study of the golden era of an extraordinary and exclusive British institution.

Drawing upon extensive paper research and interviews with former nannies and their charges, Gathorne-Hardy offers ‘a study of a unique and curious way of bringing up children, which evolved among the upper and upper-middle-classes during the nineteenth century, flourished for approximately eighty years and then, with the Second World War, vanished for ever.’ The nanny hereby earns her place in the story of the British Empire; also in the histories of psychology, child-rearing and British ruling class mores.

Jane's Adventures follows a young girl named Jane who discovers a magical book that allows her to enter different worlds and embark on exciting adventures. Throughout her journeys, she explores fantastical places and meets various characters, all while returning safely home after each adventure.

Cyril’s wife persuades him to take a job as Father Christmas in a store, where Cyril soon uncovers a criminal plot! A hilarious sequence of events follow as Cyril pits his wits against Madam Big.

The plot circles around the bookworm Cyril, who is mistaken by three Middle Eastern ne'er-do-wells for an Irish bomb maker and kidnapped to... well, make bombs, which he can't. The book is split into chapters which are just the right length for bedtime child reading; the plot is well structured and the humour is the reason the book remains as one of my favourites. (A. Tomkins)

Operation Ping could prove the deadliest mission yet for the bravest men of the SAS. Who could possibly be brave enough to lead this crack commando unit into the infamous lair of Emperor Ping riddled with booby traps and evil monks? TherE's only one name on the Commander's lips - Cyril Bonhamy. It's a good thing Deidre remembered to pack his water-wings and with any luck Cyril might be inspired to write the book that will finally make him millions.

Visiting France to view some famous medieval bibles (and confusing the natives with his 'fluent' French), Cyril Bonhamy mistakes the most dangerous criminal in France for the director of the Bibliothèque, and is plunged into one of the most terrifying adventures of his life.

Pursued by gendarmes through the sewers of Nice, speeding towards Belgium in a white Mercedes, and in mortal combat with the world's strongest man, Olaf Lockjaw, Cyril is all the while feverishly plotting his escape from the fiends he must bring to justice.

Cyril's publisher has offered him a job as a script editor on location in the jungles of Brazil for a remake of Tarzan of the Apes. But things take a turn for the worse, & it's only when he bumps into a real life Tarzan that things begin to make sense.

This insightful non-fiction work chronicles the intricate evolution of human relationships, examining the societal constructs and personal experiences surrounding affection, intimacy, and commitment. It uncovers the historical shifts in attitudes towards love, sex, and the institutions of marriage and divorce, presenting a comprehensive analysis of their cultural impact. The author illustrates how these fundamental aspects of human connection have been shaped by changing social norms and individual desires across different eras. With an insightful and often provocative tone, the text details the complexities and contradictions inherent in our pursuit of lasting bonds.

This book, uses the doctor's own words to give us a complete picture - both geographical and historical - of the way they live. After a short historical background the doctors themselves describe their history, recalling practices at the turn of the century, operations on kitchen tables, the violence and poverty of Glasgow in the twenties, the coming of the NHS, and the drug revolution. The author travelled all over Britain talking to dozens of GPs; from the private doctor with a superbly equipped subterranean surgery to over-worked inner-city GPs (One, in a Scottish slum practice, with patients too poor to have shoes). He visits with the doctors, sits in on consultations, goes to practice meetings and their sometimes indiscreet dinner parties. He interviews midwives, receptionists, district nurses, chemists, doctors' wives, medical student. He talks - but above all he listens. The result is not only an enthralling record of what doctors do and think but a challenging and disturbing book about 1980s Britain.

The very first book Jonathan Gathorne Hardy wrote