Bøger af John Van der Kiste

Eagles began as a backing group for Linda Ronstadt, then realised they had the potential to strike out on their own.

ELO were formed by Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne as a fusion of rock and classically-influenced music with strings. After their 1971 debut, Wood left and Lynne took them into more commercial pastures. They disbanded in 1986, but Lynne returned with an album in 2001 and as Jeff Lynne's ELO in 2014. This book examines all their studio albums in detail.

The first ever biography of this iconic Birmingham-born musician who rose to become one of the biggest rock stars of the 70s and 80s.

An entertaining biography of The Merry Monarch's fourteen illegitimate children, their place at the royal court and in history.

Sometimes acclaimed as Scotland's finest-ever singer-songwriter, Gerry Rafferty was born in 1947. After developing a passion for several genres of popular music during childhood, from traditional folk and classical to rock'n'roll and the early 1960s beat boom, he played in a couple of bands during his teens.

Princess Helena (1846-1923) was the third daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. A steady, dependable young woman, known as 'Lenchen' within the family, she was particularly 'useful' to her demanding and recently widowed mother, who could not bear to lose her to a marriage which would oblige her to move and live abroad with her husband. In 1866 she married Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, a kindly but penniless bachelor fifteen years older than her. Despite the difference in ages, it was the only marriage among the Queen's children in which both partners lived long enough to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. For nearly sixty years Helena was a tireless supporter of good causes, particularly in the field of nursing and education. This concise biography examines her life, work and relationships with her family.

Between 1894 and 1914 the German Emperor William II and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia exchanged a series of telegrams and letters, published in 1918 and 1920. Apart from family news and gossip, they also threw an interesting light on the political relations between both sovereigns during the years leading up to the First World War, the Emperor's dislike of Russia's ally France, and his resentment of King Edward VII of Britain. These are now published for the first time in one volume, with a new introduction.

Released in 1969, Let it Bleed was The Rolling Stones' eighth studio album (tenth in the USA). This account examines in detail the background, inspiration and recording of the songs, the reception of the work as a whole, and its legacy and influence on subsequent generations of bands and performers to this day.

In April 1884 Hugh Shortland, an ambitious young lawyer and would-be entrepreneur from Devon, married Laura Dimes. Almost immediately he left her to return to a lonely existence in the parental home, while he excused himself on the grounds of an important business journey to New Zealand. Three weeks later, her drowned body was found in a pond on the family estate, and it was assumed to have been the result of a tragic accident until her husband was discovered in hiding only a few miles away. He was arrested, charged with her murder, acquitted, and went to live in New Zealand, but suspicions persist that he had planned and got away with 'the perfect murder'. This examines the evidence, and includes an account of the libel trial eight years later that led to his serving a prison sentence.

In 1900, almost two years after Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen married Prince Henry XXX of Reuss, her mother Charlotte, eldest sister of the German Emperor William, told a friend that her daughter was beyond her comprehension, and vowed to exclude her from her home 'for ever'. Charlotte had long had an uneasy relationship with her mother, now the Empress Frederick, a daughter of Queen Victoria, but her relationship with her only child astonished the family. Mother and daughter both suffered from porphyria, the disorder which appears to have exacerbated the personality differences between them. Charlotte, a frivolous-minded young woman known for her love of society life and gossip, and later her involvement in the anonymous letters scandal which plagued Berlin high society from 1892 onwards, had never really wanted children, while Feodora's life was embittered by her failure to have a family. This short life of both women examines the troubled lives which led to estrangement and in Feodora's case ended in tragedy.

Sarah Bonetta Forbes, 'Queen Victoria's African Princess', was rescued from Africa as a girl of seven after the slaughter of her family. Offered by King Gezo of Dahomey as a gift to the Queen, she was taken to England. Spending part of her childhood there and part back in Africa, she married Captain James Davies in 1862 and they settled in their native continent, where she became a teacher and died of tuberculosis at Madeira in 1880. Her story has rarely been told before by earlier biographers, or even noticed in lives of the Queen. It makes one of the most unusual, not to say fascinating, episodes in the annals of the British Victorian court.

This is a selection of the author's work written over forty years. It includes the Dartmoor Cycle, a sequence of verses reflecting each of the seasons in turn, alongside over a hundred poems inspired by everything from art, music and travel to friendship, love and loss - or life in general.

Prince Henry of Prussia was the second son of Crown Prince Frederick William, later Emperor Frederick III, and the Crown Princess, later Empress Frederick. As a youth he joined the imperial German navy, and travelled widely throughout Asia and the Americas. An easygoing character, renowned for his interest in motoring and aviation as well as nautical matters, he was much more popular with his royal and imperial cousins throughout Europe than his elder brother, Emperor William II. Yet his love of England, and reluctance to contemplate the possibility of hostilities between Germany and England, is thought to have led to his convincing the Emperor that the English would remain neutral as the likelihood of war became increasingly inevitable in 1914. This is the first biography in English of an often-overlooked prince.

For most of the sixties, the British music scene was dominated by two bands, The Majors and The Headwinds. After increasing personal and musical differences, towards the end of the decade one member of each band collaborated in forming a new one, Elmore Sounds. This novel tells the story.

The title of Duke of Cumberland was originally created as one of several conferred on Prince Rupert ('of the Rhine'), cousin of King Charles I, in 1644. Like the next three princes to be thus known, he left no legitimate heir to succeed him. Prince George of Denmark, consort of Queen Anne, had the misfortune to father several children who died in infancy, while William, son of King George II (the victor or the butcher of Culloden in 1746, depending on one's point of view), only had mistresses but no sons or daughters, while King George III's brother Prince Henry, the fourth Duke, married but left no issue.The dukedom finally achieved continuity with Prince Ernest Augustus, one of King George III's sons, much vilified on the grounds of supposed incest and bigamy, and a somewhat reactionary figure strongly opposed to Catholic emancipation, but a brave soldier and in his last fourteen years an effective, popular and much respected King of Hanover. His son and successor as Duke and King, the unfortunate blind George V, was deposed after the annexation of his domains by Prussia in 1866, while his son and heir, another Prince Ernest Augustus, was a King without a throne, and after the First World War, a Duke without a duchy.This is the first book to survey the lives of all seven Dukes in one volume, spanning the Stuart, Hanoverian eras and the early twentieth century.

A two-act drama based around the illness and death of Frederick III, son-in-law of Queen Victoria, who reigned as German Emperor for only three months in 1888. The other characters include his wife Victoria, German Empress; their son William, who succeeded him as Emperor; Queen Victoria, the Empress's mother; the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII; Prince Bismarck, German Chancellor; and Dr Morell Mackenzie, the British doctor in charge of the case. The title comes from a letter written by the Empress to Queen Victoria in which she says she thinks 'people in general consider us a mere passing shadow, soon to be replaced by reality in the shape of William'

Born a princess of Schleswig-Holstein in 1858, Empress Augusta Victoria, known in the family as 'Dona', was marked out from early childhood as a potential bride for Prince William of Prussia. When they married in 1881, everyone expected that she would never concern herself with more than the traditional Prussian princess's interests of Kirche, Küche, Kinder (church, kitchen, children). Yet within twenty years of his accession as William II, the last German Emperor, she would become in some ways the stronger character and steadying influence her increasingly neurotic and unstable husband required. This is the first biography of an often overlooked personality in modern history.

In 1914 Grand Duchess Olga of Russia, the nineteen-year-old eldest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra of Russia, sails to England to meet her cousin Edward, Prince of Wales, generally known as David, as a possible husband. She arrives just as war is about to break out between England and Germany, and is unable to return to her family. Is there any alternative to her destiny as the bride of the future King of England?

When Dave goes to college in London for two years he meets Lisa, a fellow student. After they have been out together a few times, he decides that she is not the one for him. Soon afterwards the less complicated Jo comes into his life, and before long they are an item. But Lisa, trying to put the past behind her and make a new start for herself, is reluctant to let go of him. Somehow, she seems to be always there...

From his early days as guitarist with Mike Sheridan and the Nightriders, Roy Wood was always a major figure on the Birmingham music scene. In 1965 he helped to form The Move, who weathered several line-up changes over the next few years while enjoying a spectacular run of hit singles, notably Flowers In The Rain, the first record ever played on Radio 1, and the No. 1 Blackberry Way. Keen to progress beyond the limitations of a conventional group, he became the co-founder and joint leader of the Electric Light Orchestra with Jeff Lynne. Leaving the band in 1972, he formed the very successful if comparatively shortlived Wizzard, remembered for their No. 1 hit See My Baby Jive and the perennial seasonal favourite I Wish It Could be Christmas Everyday. After they disbanded he maintained a solo career while forming subsequent groups for live performances. The first book to examine his career in detail, it includes a Foreword by Ray Dorset of Mungo Jerry, plus an extensive discography and select bibliography.

Since the title was created in the fourteenth century, five English princes have borne the title Duke of Clarence.The first, Lionel, son of Edward III, and the second, Thomas, son of Henry IV, both fought in the Hundred Years' War, the latter perishing in battle. The third, George, brother of Edward IV and Richard III, was the only one to leave a legitimate male heir, but was sentenced to death for treason and allegedly drowned in a butt of malmsey wine. The fourth, William Henry, son of George III, was the only one to succeed to the throne, becoming William IV. The last, Albert Victor, son of the future Edward VII, would have followed his father on the throne had he not died young from influenza.In addition the brief and tragic life of Lord Guildford Dudley, who was offered the title by his wife Lady Jane Grey, the nine days' Queen, is also included.This is the first book to tell the lives of each of the Dukes, spanning six centuries from the medieval period to the Victorian era.

John Van der Kiste began painting while studying History of Art at A-level at school and has continued at intervals throughout his working life. Since becoming a full-time author, he has taken the hobby up again with renewed enthusiasm. This book is published to coincide with his first one-man exhibition at South Brent in October 2019. It includes over 80 paintings, all illustrated in colour. They include landscapes of his home village and the surrounding countryside, Dartmoor, the rest of Devon and other areas, with a selection of still lifes and animal pictures, alongside an introductory essay.

Born a princess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach in 1811, Augusta was married at the age of seventeen to Prince William of Prussia, the future King and first German Emperor. A woman of progressive opinions and artistic tastes, married to a man with whom she had almost nothing in common, she soon found herself out of place at the military-minded court of Berlin, an existence she sought to alleviate for a time in an endless round of parties and social activities and an appetite for gossip. But despite increasing ill-health from middle age, she soon found self-fulfilment in her involvement with nursing and other welfare activities in Berlin, as well as her interest in the arts. A friend of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort in England for some years, she passed her liberal views on to her only son Frederick, destined to reign for only three months as German Emperor in 1888, two years before her own death. This is the first biography in English for over a century.

The DICTIONARY OF ROYAL BIOGRAPHERS brings together short entries on more than 500 authors who have written and published in English on the lives of British and European Kings, Queens, Emperors, Empresses and their families from the Norman conquest and the eleventh century to the present day. Writers from the early nineteenth century onwards are included, as are over thirty monarchs, ex-monarchs, princes and princesses who published their own memoirs. A list of relevant titles with date of first publication follows each entry.

Of Queen Victoria's four sons, the eldest married a Danish princess, one a Russian Grand Duchess, and the other two princesses of German royal houses.

Containing over 2500 questions, this book covers all kinds of music. While the emphasis is on pop, rock and in fact all genres that have been the mainstay of the charts since 1952, classical, opera and musicals are also covered. A couple of 'Big Mix' rounds of 100 questions each include folk, blues and jazz s well as pop and the classics, while there are also plenty of specialist rounds on rock'n'roll, Tamla Motown, prog rock, Britpop, artist-owned labels, and a series on major names including The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks, Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, Fleetwood Mac, Kate Bush, The Smiths, Take That, Ed Sheeran, John Peel - and much more. Any music devotee will find plenty of interest, either on one's own or for quizzing at parties, pub quizzes, and any other occasion.

Having moved from jazz, Blues and R'n'B to out-and-out pop in his various 1960s bands, keyboard player Manfred Mann went back to the drawing board in 1971 with a new quartet, Manfred Mann's Earth Band, and the intention of focusing on progressive rock. With a repertoire that leant partly on radical rearrangements of songs by Bob Dylan and then Bruce Springsteen, largely instrumental epics that borrowed from Gustav Holst's The Planets suite, and improvisations based around the interplay between Manfred's newly-acquired moog synthesiser and the lead guitar of Mick Rogers, who left in 1975 but later returned, they soon built up a formidable live reputation throughout much of Europe (particularly in Germany) and America. Apart from the Holst-inspired 'Joybringer', a top ten hit in 1973, British success was slow in coming, until a cover version of Springsteen's 'Blinded by the Light' and its parent album The Roaring Silence three years later took their status to a new level on both sides of the Atlantic. This book examines the nine albums, fluctuating fortunes and various line-up changes from what was to be their best and most prolific decade.

This book portrays the life and character of 'Good King Billy', one of Britain's most endearing sovereigns.