Cyril Taylor-Carr

Graeme Edge was born on 30th March 1941 in Rochester, Staffordshire. His mother was a pianist for the silent movies and his father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all music-hall singers. Edge trained as a draughtsman but soon went into music full time. He never started out to be a drummer, he was, in fact the manager of a group called the Blue Rhythm Band. Graeme always watched the drummer in the group and fooled around on the drums, but...

Lincoln's connection to black history may go much further than his role in slavery. In the 2001 book 'Black People and Their Place in History', historian Leroy Vaughn, alleges that Lincoln's father was African American and his mother had Ethiopian ethnicity, both of which may have explained his "very dark skin and coarse hair." The fact is his rivals campaigned using propaganda that depicted Lincoln as "Abraham Africanus the First," an African man. It...

"The five stories brought together in Tales of Unrest (1898) mark a turning point in the writer's career. Conrad's first short story collection evidences a writer firmly in control of his new craft staking a claim to diverse cultural and fictional territories.

Charles Dickens' work The Battle of Life: A Love Story has an English village on the site of a historic battle as the setting. Some characters allude to the war as a metaphor for the struggle for life, hence the title. Charles John Huffam Dickens FRSA is an English writer and social commentator. He produced some of the world's most renowned fictional characters and is often regarded as the best author of the Victorian era. His writings achieved unparalleled...

"Judah Ben-Hur is a Jewish prince from Jerusalem, who is enslaved by the Romans at the beginning of the first century. Running in parallel with Judah's narrative is the unfolding story of Jesus, who is from the same region and around the same age. As Judah is being marched to a slave ship, Jesus offers him a drink of water and encouragement. Judah's experiences with betrayal and revenge lead to love and compassion after he witnesses the crucifixion...

"No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth than the alluring, resourceful Becky Sharp, who ruthlessly clambers up the social ladder while her sweet, sentimental friend Amelia longs for her worthless soldier lover. As fortunes change, and battles are fought at home and abroad, who will survive?"--Book cover.

Benjamin Jonson (1572-1637) was a Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor, known best for his satirical plays and lyric poems. He had a knack for absurdity and hypocrisy, a trait that made him immensely popular in the 17th century Renaissance period. However, his reputation diminished somewhat in the Romantic era, when he began to be unfairly compared to Shakespeare. The Theatre in London had had been denied to "The Admiral's Men" in 1597, but the troupe...

Restless Classics presents The Souls of Black Folk: W. E. B. Du Bois's seminal work of sociology, with searing insights into our complex, corrosive relationship with race and the African-American consciousness. Reconsidered for the era of Obama, Trump, and Black Lives Matter, the new edition includes an incisive introduction from rising cultural critic Vann R. Newkirk II and stunning illustrations by the artist Steve Prince. Published in 1903, exactly...

Candide is characterized by its tone as well as by its erratic, fantastical, and fast-moving plot. A picaresque novel with a story similar to that of a more serious coming-of-age narrative, it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is bitter and matter-of-fact. Still, the events discussed are often based on historical happenings, such as the Seven Years' War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake....

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known popularly by his stage name Molière, is regarded as one of the masters of French comedic drama. When Molière began acting in Paris there were two well-established theatrical companies, those of the Hôtel de Bourgogne and the Marais. Joining these theatrical companies would have been impossible for a new member of the acting profession like Molière and thus he performed with traveling troupes of actors in the French...