INNOVATION brings Peter Ackroyd's History of England to a triumphant close. Ackroyd takes readers from the end of the Boer War and the accession of Edward VII to the end of the 20th century, when his great-granddaughter Elizabeth II had been on the throne for almost five decades. It was a century of enormous change, encompassing two world wars, four monarchs, the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the Labour Party, women's suffrage, the birth of the NHS, the march of suburbia, and the clearance of the slums. It was a period that saw the work of the Bloomsbury Group and T.S. Eliot, of Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin, from the end of the post-war slump to the technicolor explosion of the 1960s, to free love and punk rock, and from Thatcher to Blair.

DOMINION, the fifth volume of Peter Ackroyd’s History of England, begins in 1815 as national glory following the Battle of Waterloo gives way to a post-war depression and ends with the death of Queen Victoria in January 1901. Spanning the end of the Regency, Ackroyd takes readers from the accession of the profligate George IV, whose government was steered by Lord Liverpool, whose face was set against reform, to the “Sailor King” William IV, whose reign saw the modernization of the political system and the abolition of slavery. But it was the accession of Queen Victoria, at only 18 years old, that sparked an era of enormous innovation.

In REVOLUTION, Peter Ackroyd takes readers from William of Orange's accession following the Glorious Revolution to the Regency, when the flamboyant Prince of Wales ruled in the stead of his mad father, George III, and England was --- again --- at war with France, a war that would end with the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.

Alfred Hitchcock rigorously controlled his public image, drawing certain carefully selected childhood anecdotes into full focus and blurring out all others. In this gripping short biography, Peter Ackroyd wrests the director’s chair back from the master of control to reveal a lugubriously jolly man fond of practical jokes, who smashed a once-used tea cup every morning to remind himself of the frailty of life. Iconic film stars make cameo appearances throughout Hitchcock’s story, just as the director did in his own films: Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, James Stewart and, perhaps most famously of all, Tippi Hedren, who endures cuts and bruises from a fearsome flock of real birds.

The third volume of Peter Ackroyd's The History of England covers the Stuart dynasty, which brought together England and Scotland, during a period marked by civil war and the killing of a king. Ackroyd tells the story of the turbulent 17th century, in which England suffered through three civil wars --- two fought between Parliament and both Charles I and Charles II, and, finally, the "Glorious Rebellion of 1688," which saw Charles II’s brother James deposed and sent into exile.

The previous titles in Peter Ackroyd’s Brief Lives series have focused on writers (Chaucer and Poe), scientists (Isaac Newton) and painters (J. M. W. Turner). Now he turns to cinema with this engaging biography of Charlie Chaplin. Ackroyd’s narrative covers it all: Chaplin’s early years growing up in poverty in South London; his unprecedented fame in Keystone and First National comedies and, later, those of his own studio; and the temper and egotism that vexed his collaborators.

THREE BROTHERS follows the fortunes of Harry, Daniel and Sam Hanway, a trio of brothers born on a postwar council estate in Camden Town. Marked from the start by curious coincidence, each boy is forced to make his own way in the world --- a world of dodgy deals and big business, of criminal gangs and crooked landlords, of newspaper magnates, backbiters and petty thieves.

TUDORS is the story of England's most famous monarchs, the plots between and against them, and a nation on its way from chaos to stability. Above all, it is the story of the English Reformation and the making of the Anglican Church. Peter Ackroyd’s book shows a country where good governance was the duty of the state, not the church, and where men and women began to look to themselves for answers rather than to those who ruled them.

Acclaimed historian Peter Ackroyd tells the epic story of England itself. He takes us from the primeval forests of England’s prehistory to the death, in 1509, of the first Tudor king, Henry VII. He guides us from the building of Stonehenge to the founding of the two great glories of medieval England: common law and the cathedrals. He describes the successive waves of invaders who made England English, despite being themselves Roman, Viking, Saxon, or Norman French.

LONDON UNDER is a short and comprehensive study of everything that goes on underground in London, from original springs and streams and Roman amphitheaters to Victorian sewers, gang hideouts and modern tube stations. Spanning throughout history, Peter Ackroyd reveals stories and secrets of this hidden world.