The biography of the last Ranee of Sarawak, born into the aristocracy as Sylvia Brett in 1885 and destined to become 'Queen of the Headhunters'. 'Jaw-dropping ... If you thought White Mischief the last word in English expatriate decadence, you haven't yet met Sylvia and the Brookes' The Times Sylvia Brooke was the consort of His Highness Sir Vyner Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, the last in a bizarre dynasty of English despots who ruled their jungle kingdom on Borneo until 1946. The White Rajahs were long held up as model rulers, but the spectacularly eccentric behaviour of Ranee Sylvia - self-styled Queen of the Headhunters - changed everything. This is the compelling story of her part in their downfall.

Sylvia Brooke (1885-1971) was one of the more exotic figures of the twentieth century. Otherwise known as the Ranee of Sarawak, she was the consort (and by custom, slave) of Sir Vyner Brooke, the last White Rajah, whose family had ruled the jungle kingdom of Sarawak on Borneo for three generations. They had their own flag, revenue, postage stamps, and money, and each White Rajah had the power of life and death over his subjects - Malays, Chinese and headhunting Dyak tribesmen.The regime of the White Rajahs was long deemed superior to any in the British Empire. But rather like the French monarchy before the revolution, by the 1930s there was a sharp decline in their power and prestige. When one of the Brooke daughters married a bandleader and another a wrestler, Sarawak threatened to become a music-hall joke. At the centre of this perceived decadence was Ranee Sylvia, author of eleven books, extravagantly-dressed socialite and incorrigible self-dramatist, described by the press as 'that most charming of despots', and by her own brother as 'a female Iago'. The Colonial Office branded her 'a dangerous woman, full of Machiavellian schemes to alter the succession, and spectacularly vulgar in her behaviour. After observing the Ranee dancing with two prostitutes in a nightclub, then taking them back to the palace to paint their portraits, a visiting MP from Westminster concluded that 'a more undignified woman it would be hard to find'.Sylvia, Queen of the Headhunters chronicles the extraordinary life of the Ranee, with a supporting cast including Sylvia's father, a celebrated courtier in love with his own son; her whimsical and sexually incontinent husband, Rajah Vyner; the Rajah's unhinged, Rasputinesque private secretary; and the Rajah's nephew, whose folie de grandeur as the young heir gave way (after he was thwarted) to an interest in world peace and flying saucers.

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN, SUNDAY TIMES AND FINANCIAL TIMES Fifty years after Evelyn Waugh’s death, here is a completely fresh view of one of the most gifted -- and fascinating -- writers of our time, the enigmatic author of Brideshead Revisited. Graham Greene hailed Waugh as ‘the greatest novelist of my generation’, and in recent years his reputation has only grown. Now Philip Eade has delivered an authoritative and hugely entertaining biography that is full of new material, much of it sensational. Eade builds upon the existing Waugh lore with access to a remarkable array of unpublished sources provided by Waugh’s grandson, including passionate love letters to Baby Jungman – the Holy Grail of Waugh research - a revealing memoir by Waugh’s first wife Evelyn Gardner (“Shevelyn”), and an equally significant autobiography by Waugh’s commanding officer in World War II. Eade’s gripping narrative illuminates Waugh’s strained relationship with his sentimental father and blatantly favoured elder brother; his love affairs with male classmates at Oxford and female bright young things thereafter; his disastrous first marriage and subsequent conversion to Roman Catholicism; his insane wartime bravery; his drug-induced madness; his singular approach to marriage and fatherhood; his complex relationship with the aristocracy; the astonishing power of his wit; and the love, fear, and loathing that he variously inspired in others. One of Eade’s aims is ‘to re-examine some of the distortions and misconceptions that have come to surround this famously complex and much mythologized character’.‘This might look like code for a plan to whitewash the overly blackwashed Waugh,’ comments veteran Waugh scholar Professor Donat Gallagher; ‘but readers fixated on atrocities will not be disappointed . . . I have been researching and writing about Waugh since 1963 and Eade time and again surprised and delighted me.’ Waugh was famously difficult and Eade brilliantly captures the myriad facets of his character even as he casts new light on the novels that have dazzled generations of readers.

Fanny Parkes, Who Lived In India Between 1822 And 1846, Was The Ideal Travel Writer Courageous, Indefatigably Curious And Determinedly Independent. Her Delightful Journal Traces Her Journey From Prim Memsahib, Married To A Minor Civil Servant Of The Raj, To Eccentric Sitar-Playing Indophile, Fluent In Urdu, Critical Of British Rule And Passionate In Her Appreciation Of Indian Culture. Fanny Is Fascinated By Everything, From The Trial Of The Thugs And The Efficacy Of Opium On Headaches To The Adorning Of A Hindu Bride. To Read Her Is To Get As Close As One Can To A True Picture Of Early Colonial India The Sacred And The Profane, The Violent And The Beautiful, The Straight-Laced Sahibs And The More Eccentric White Mughals Who Fell In Love With India And Did Their Best, Like Fanny, To Build Bridges Across Cultures.

The Sunday Times bestseller A Radio 4 Book of the Week, June 2021 ‘Highly readable ... deserves to take its place among the first rank of modern royal biographies’ Daily Mail ‘The narrative is as suspenseful as any thriller. Truly, an excellent read’ Lynn Barber, Sunday Times

*NATIONAL BESTSELLER* *SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA HISTORICAL DAGGER AWARD* A Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year A New York Times Editors’ Choice Pick “Banville sets up and then deftly demolishes the Agatha Christie format…superbly rich and sophisticated.”—New York Times Book Review The incomparable Booker Prize winner’s next great crime novel—the story of a family whose secrets resurface when a parish priest is found murdered in their ancestral home Detective Inspector St. John Strafford has been summoned to County Wexford to investigate a murder. A parish priest has been found dead in Ballyglass House, the family seat of the aristocratic, secretive Osborne family. The year is 1957 and the Catholic Church rules Ireland with an iron fist. Strafford—flinty, visibly Protestant and determined to identify the murderer—faces obstruction at every turn, from the heavily accumulating snow to the culture of silence in the tight-knit community he begins to investigate. As he delves further, he learns the Osbornes are not at all what they seem. And when his own deputy goes missing, Strafford must work to unravel the ever-expanding mystery before the community’s secrets, like the snowfall itself, threaten to obliterate everything. Beautifully crafted, darkly evocative and pulsing with suspense, Snow is “the Irish master” (New Yorker) John Banville at his page-turning best. Don't miss John Banville's next novel, The Lock-up! Other riveting mysteries from John Banville: April in Spain

Documents the story of the world's first white Ranee, the controversial consort of Sir Vyner Brooke, covering her relationship with her family, her role as her husband's private secretary, her decadence, and her literary achievements.