The Life and Adventures of William Cobbett

<p>A remarkably perceptive and vivid life of William Cobbett, one of England's greatest radicals. The early years of the nineteenth century were ones of misery and oppression. The common people were thrown into conditions of extreme poverty by enclosures and the Agricultural Revolution, and the long Tory administration of Lord Liverpool saw its task as keeping law and order at all costs. The cause of reform was a dangerous one, as William Cobbett was to find. Cobbett is best known for his Rural Rides, that classic account of early-nineteenth century Britain which has never been out of print. But he was a much greater figure than that implies, being the foremost satirist and proponent of reform of the time. He had an invincible stomach for provoking the deceit and vanity of the supposedly good and great, and had an abiding hatred of the establishment, or 'The Thing', as he christened it. In the pages of his Political Register he lambasted corruption and excoriated hypocrisy, and walked forever in fear of prosecution for libel, for which he was sent to Newgate prison for two years, suffered bankruptcy and was forced to flee to America. For all that the establishment loathed and feared him, the people loved him, and he was greeted by adoring crowds wherever he went. He was a hero of his time, and Richard Ingrams's admirable biography is both judicious, moving, sometimes funny and always utterly engaging.</p>

Richard Ingrams

Biographies & Memoirs

Harpercollins

History

HarperCollins, Publishers

Muggeridge: The Biography

"Private Eye's" Bumper Book of Boobs

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Private Eye

<p>The "Dear Bill" letters were a regular feature in the British satirical magazine Private Eye, purporting to be the private correspondence of Denis Thatcher, husband of the then-Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.The concept of writing satire from the point of view of a Prime Ministerial spouse was not new to the magazine, who had published Mrs Wilson's Diary (also a collaboration between Wells and Ingrams) along the same line during the Wilson government. It allowed the writers wide rein to comment on the personal peculiarities of senior politicians without seeming overly absurd, and was presented in a context that was - whilst clearly fictional - quite plausible. The assumed characteristics of the subject - a conservative reactionary, a "buffer's buffer" surveying the world through the bottom of a glass and not liking it one inch - gave ample opportunity for a rich and identifiable style; the image of Denis portrayed in the letters - a gin-soaked half-witted layabout, whose sole activity was to try to escape the wrath of "the Boss" - was a popular one, and Denis Thatcher remained in the public imagination as a less gaffe-prone version of the Duke of Edinburgh long after both the Thatcher government and the series itself had ended. The portrayal was not entirely negative; Denis Thatcher was portrayed as having a sharp and witty tongue, and a keen eye for events around him.</p>

Dear Bill (Private Eye Book)

John Wells

Wm. Collins Sons & Co.

Just the One: Further Letters of Denis Thatcher

Andre Deutsch Ltd.

For forty years, Ed McLachlan's cartoons have graced the pages of Punch, Private Eye, the Spectator, the Sunday Telegraph and a host of newspapers, books and films. Scabrously funny, black and twisted, they cast an entirely new light on everyday situations, in which the unexpected always crops up like an avenging angel. Like a domesticated FAR SIDE, these are the work of a brilliantly inventive imagination that sets just a small, hilarious and alarming gap between us and the world we move in.

McLachlan

Comics & Graphic Novels

Methuen Publishing, Ltd.

On and on: Further Letters of Denis Thatcher

Corgi

Best of Dear Bill

Sphere Books Limited

Beachcomber: The Works of J.B. Morton

J.B. Morton

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

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Books by Richard Ingrams