The first book in the phenomenally successful Thursday Next series, from Number One bestselling author Jasper Fforde. 'Always ridiculous, often hilarious ... blink and you miss a vital narrative leap. There are shades of Douglas Adams, Lewis Carroll, 'Clockwork Orange' and '1984'. And that's just for starters' - Time OutMeet Thursday Next, literary detective without equal, fear or boyfriend.There is another 1985, where London's criminal gangs have moved into the lucrative literary market, and Thursday Next is on the trail of the new crime wave's MR Big.Acheron Hades has been kidnapping certain characters from works of fiction and holding them to ransom. Jane Eyre is gone. Missing.Thursday sets out to find a way into the book to repair the damage. But solving crimes against literature isn't easy when you also have to find time to halt the Crimean War, persuade the man you love to marry you, and figure out who really wrote Shakespeare's plays.Perhaps today just isn't going to be Thursday's day. Join her on a truly breathtaking adventure, and find out for yourself. Fiction will never be the same again ...

Magic My father took me to a magic show when I was young. I was not impressed. Even then I knew about trickery and deceit. Maybe it was my older sister who filled me in on all the lies – like Santa and the Tooth Fairy. As I grew older, I discovered real magic. It’s

Depicting spontaneous everyday scenes in more loosely painted styles than were traditional at the time, Impressionism was invented by a group of Parisian

1. Marseille’s Transporter Bridge (and Restaurant) inaugurated in 1905 and destroyed in 1944 Demolished by the Nazi army in an attempt to block the port during the liberation of the city. At the top of the bridge there was a luxury restaurant while at the water’s edge a mobile platform suspended by cables connected the…

Frantisek Kotzwara was an accomplished Czech composer and a talented performer of the violin, double bass, piano, cello, flute and other str...

Hello there! My name is Eline, and I'm crazy about audiobooks. It's ridiculous how much they've changed my daily life. I've always been an avid reader, but taking the step and trying out audiobooks was a real game changer for me.

We publish articles around emotional education: calm, fulfilment, perspective and self-awareness. | On Being Upset Without Knowing It — Read now

In a scorching Parisian heat wave, all one wants to do is chug a bottle of Vittel while hugging another cold one for brief relief. While the iconic water brand sells over a billion bottles a year worldwide today, lesser-known is the Belle Epoque spa town where over a century ago, socialites once gathered on vacation to benefit from both…

The Dickens Museum in London's fascinating exploration of the symbiosis between Dickens and his illustrators also reveals another very close relationship - the author and his fan clubs Charles Dickens is credited with giving us many things – from several...

When we think on Pre-Raphaelite art many names come instantly to our minds, such as John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, John Wil…

In a scorching Parisian heat wave, all one wants to do is chug a bottle of Vittel while hugging another cold one for brief relief. While the iconic water brand sells over a billion bottles a year worldwide today, lesser-known is the Belle Epoque spa town where over a century ago, socialites once gathered on vacation to benefit from both…

The theme of the 2022 Met Gala? Gilded Glamour. Here, examine Gilded Age fashion, as chronicled in the pages of 1890s Vogue.

Henri Farré left behind his comfortable life as a portraitist to join the French military, and depict firsthand the birth of combat aviation in WWI.

Meet the stylish gender-role rebels of 1770s England.

Folding fans have been long associated with feminine hands and wiles, whether they were used to pass clandestine messages to a lover, be rhythmically twisted by a flamenco dancer, or simply held close to keep a church lady’s neck cool. It was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to monetise the…

Just what the deuce do they mean with all their gadzooks and apoplexies, their barouches and barking irons? The language of the Regency – the period of time roughly earmarked as 1795 to 1820 in Britain when the reigning King George III was deemed unfit to rule and his son took over as Prince Regent…

When you next leave the house, turn right. Then turn left. Then right again, followed by another left. And by Jove, I think you’ve got it! Do this until you’re blocked by an obstacle, whether that’s a dead-end, a river, or a sheer drop. Congratulations, you’ve just completed your first act of travelling experimentally. Alternating…

Even some of the greatest names in art history- Paul Cézanne, Édouard Manet, Camille Pissarro and James Whistler- were once rejected by the art world. In 1863, the “Salon of Painting and Sculpture” had been going for almost two centuries. Held annually at the Louvre, the show presented the work of promising young graduates from…

Study of a Female Model Holding a Wreath, Rue du Val de Grâce] by Alphonse Maria Mucha - 1900

1. "Dreaming of Pomegranates", 1913, by Felice Casorati an Italian painter, sculptor and printmaker More from this artist found on Weimar Art. 2. A master-planned retirement community with more than 1,740 RV homes Mobile home and RV parks cover a considerable portion of

On the morning of January 30, 1889, three friends of Rudolf, the Crown Prince of Austria, broke down On the morning of January 30, 1889, three friends of Rudolf, the Crown Prince of Austria, broke down the bedroom door at his hunting lodge to find him dead, sitting by the naked corpse of his teenage…

Whether you need organizing advice or want inspiration for holiday parties, we'll help you make your life at home happy and healthy.

1. #TheQueuefortheQueen 2. The British royal family owns a not-so-nerdy stamp collection worth £100 million (The Royal Philatelic Collection also doubles as the family photo album). Queen Victoria’s son Prince Alfred started it all off with a pane of 6d stam

Many of us struggle to remember the details of our dreams. The reasons lie in the complicated cycles of our sleep.

A poisoned batch of peppermints devastated an English town.

She was the kind of woman who never belonged to anyone but herself. At least, when it came to love. But for Natalie Clifford Barney, life overflowed with colour, creativity, and passion in Paris’ Left Bank during one of city’s most romantic periods. Think of her as a lesser-known Gertrude Stein, albeit one who curated…

She was the kind of woman who never belonged to anyone but herself. At least, when it came to love. But for Natalie Clifford Barney, life overflowed with colour, creativity, and passion in Paris’ Left Bank during one of city’s most romantic periods. Think of her as a lesser-known Gertrude Stein, albeit one who curated…

The author of The Eyre Affair answered your questions on everything from his plans for his hero Thursday Next, dealing with publisher rejections and the feminism in Jane Eyre

So hätte es sein können, wäre Wales 1985 eine Sowjetrepublik gewesen: Menschen gehen in Gedichten von Wordsworth verloren. Jane Eyre wird in einer feigen Zurschaustellung von literarischem Vandalismus entführt. Diese Fälle sind das täglich Brot für Literaturdetektivin Thursday Next, deren Hartnäckigkeit so bemerkenswert ist wie ihr Liebesleben verheerend.

There’s a famous American song “Yankee Doodle” – you might’ve heard of it – the lyrics go like this: “Yankee Doodle went to town, A-riding on a pony, Stuck a feather in his cap, And called it macaroni.” The familiar patriotic tune was in fact created by the British to mock the Americans during the…