Biography Great Women

Following his mother's death, in 2004, Tyler Trafford discovers an album of old letters and creased photographs that reveal a mother he never knew, a man he's never heard of, and a love affair doomed by class and circumstance. The letters are from Jens Mller, a Norwegian pilot who trained in Canada during the early days of World War II, one of only three prisoners who would make it home after The Great Escape.

Part biography, part cultural history, The Creation of Anne Boleyn is a fascinating reconstruction of Anne’s life and an illuminating look at her afterlife in the popular imagination. Why is Anne so compelling? Why has she inspired such extreme reactions? What did she really look like? Was she the flaxen-haired martyr of Romantic paintings or the raven-haired seductress of twenty-first-century portrayals? (Answer: Neither.) And perhaps the most provocative questions concern Anne’s death more than her life.

In a rich and riveting narrative, Jane Dunn reveals the extraordinary rivalry between the regal cousins. It is the story of two queens ruling on one island, each with a claim to the throne of England, each embodying dramatically opposing qualities of character, ideals of womanliness (and views of sexuality) and divinely ordained kingship. As regnant queens in an overwhelmingly masculine world, they were deplored for their femaleness, compared unfavorably with each other and courted by the same men.

Sarah Churchill, first Duchess of Marlborough, was the glamorous and controversial subject of hundreds of satires, newspaper articles and publications both during her lifetime and after her death. This biography brings Sarah Churchill's own voice, passionate and intelligent, back to life and casts a critical eye over images of the Duchess handed down through art, history and literature. Here is an unforgettable portrait of a woman who cared intensely about how we would remember her.

There have been countless badass women who have changed the world for the better, yet most people have never even heard of them. Women throughout history have fought for their rights and the rights of others, defended their countries during wartime, healed the sick and the wounded, invented new technologies, led countries, made inspiring art, and so much more.

Having found fame and success as a model, Christine's short affair with the minister for war, John Profumo, led to his downfall at the end of Harold Macmillan's Conservative government, and was at the heart of the social and political earthquake that followed. She became the subject of scandal, intrigue and gossip and was tried for perjury and briefly jailed following the death of Stephen Ward, the socialite who had introduced her to Profumo.

Emily Dickinson may be the most widely read and beloved of all American poets, but the story behind her work's initial, posthumous publication in 1890 and the mother-and-daughter team most responsible for her enduring legacy are barely known. After Emily recounts the extraordinary lives of Mabel Loomis Todd and her daughter, Millicent Todd Bingham, and the powerful literary legacy they shared.

In 1876 Sophia Duleep Singh was born into royalty. Her father, Maharajah Duleep Singh, was heir to the Kingdom of the Sikhs. Exiled to England, the dispossessed Maharajah transformed his estate at Elveden in Suffolk into a Moghul palace. Sophia, god-daughter of Queen Victoria, was raised a genteel aristocratic Englishwoman: presented at court, afforded grace-and-favour lodgings at Hampton Court Palace and photographed wearing the latest fashions for the society pages. But when, in secret defiance of the British government, she travelled to India, she returned a revolutionary.

How did Patsy Mink become a member of Congress? Listeners will learn all about this great Asian American politician and the significant events in her life in this low-leveled biography.

Marlene Wagman-Geller, author of Once Again to Zelda and Behind Every Great Man, presents a fascinating collection of biographical vignettes of dozens of women of a certain age who have excelled, inspired, and achieved. Learn how these women changed their respective fields of art, politics, science, mathematics, media, literature, activism, education, and more. From actresses, yoga teachers, folk artists to business women, prime ministers, monarchs, and authors, this group of exceptional women will illustrate that women can achieve anything, no matter their age.

Over half of all the visual artists working today are women, but the paintings and sculptures shown in many galleries and museums tell a different story because they're usually the work of men. In this audiobook, Kate Pankhurst, descendent of Emmeline Pankhurst, tells the fascinating stories of some of history's most talented female artists.

This Audio Album features the deeply personal stories of 11 gutsy women who turned the worst thing that ever happened in their lives into the best thing. These "chapters" are engaging, inspirational and empowering...demonstrating triumph over tragedy. The album introduces a beautiful anthem, "Speak Out" which weaves these stories together.

From one of Italy’s most renowned historians of religion, an exciting new portrait of one of Christianity’s most complex - and most misunderstood - figures: Mary Magdalene.

All politicians adopt a public persona that they believe contributes to electoral success. Although those personas might reflect the character of the politician, they reveal only a part of the man: We know far less about the characteristics politicians reveal when they are out of the public eye, and Winston Churchill is no exception.

Was Joan of Arc accused because she was a woman? Then why did so many fierce and battle-hardened male warriors line up their troops behind her? Yet, not even one of her soldiers, be they longbowmen, cavalry riders, knights, artillerymen, and nobles, ran from the command of a woman. Instead, they marveled at her as she mounted the ladders to a heavily defended castle, right along with the men, shot arrows, thrust spears, and galloped on her great white steed along with the best of them. She was wounded twice and yet did not shirk from battle.

In London during the interwar years, five women's lives intertwined around one address. Mecklenburgh Square, on the radical fringes of Bloomsbury, was home to activists, experimenters and revolutionaries; among them were the modernist poet H. D., detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers, classicist Jane Harrison, economic historian Eileen Power, and author and publisher Virginia Woolf.

With the growth of civilization came more scientific methods, generally discovered by significant individuals. This informative and entertaining audiobook presents the major figures in the history of medicine, from Hippocrates in Ancient Greece to the Roman doctor Galen and the medieval abbess Hildegard of Bingen. It also explores the Arabs Ibn Sina and Al-Razi and the start of major anatomical investigations during the Renaissance by Andreas Vesalius.

At age five, Esme was asked to write in her notebook, but instead, she filled it with drawings—the only way she knew to express herself. At seven, when it was discovered she was partially deaf, she found refuge in her sketchbooks. Shortly after, Esme made her first garment and a passion for sewing and designing was born. As a teenager, she made her way to London where her creative journey truly began.

Situated in the early decades of the magnificent Mughal Empire, this first ever biography of Princess Gulbadan offers an enthralling portrait of a charismatic adventurer and unique pictures of the multicultural society in which she lived. Following a migratory childhood that spanned Kabul and north India, Gulbadan spent her middle years in a walled harem established by her nephew Akbar to showcase his authority as the Great Emperor.

Jeanne Selander and Fred Miller had been married less than five years and were deeply entrenched in family life with their infant daughter and precocious four-year-old son when Fred was diagnosed with a terminal illness. His doctors gave him just three months to live. Instead of giving into fear, they chose to live each day in an unrestrained pursuit of life and love. What they discovered during the eight years that Fred survived gives us luminous insights into love and life and the spirit as they learned to live in the present and not to give away the precious moments of this life.