Download Free The Dukes Portrait Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online The Dukes Portrait and write the review.

Charles Goodgame is a portrait painter who’s in love with his stepsister Polly Capstan. She works for the Duke of Burfaughtonleigh at his crumbling stately home in Gloucestershire. Polly invites Charles to paint a portrait of the Duke, but when he arrives, he finds that she has an ulterior motive, a brilliant idea that will make them ‘pots of money’. The plan goes wrong, of course … The supporting cast of characters includes aristocratic crooks, a widowed Viscountess with a penchant for Italian waiters, an artist with a guilty secret who is being blackmailed by the alcoholic wife of a theatre impresario and a bank manager who carries handcuffs and a shotgun when chasing fraudsters, but not everyone is who they appear to be. All their lives collide in a series of scandals, shocks and surprises that continue to the very last page. Ken Wilson has been writing educational materials for nearly fifty years, and sold more than ten million books before he wrote his first work of fiction. In all, he wrote more than thirty English language teaching titles, including a dozen series of textbooks. His most successful course book series, Smart Choice, published by Oxford University Press, is in its fourth edition and has sold more than six and a half million copies. His first publication was an album of language teaching songs called Mister Monday, released when he was 23, which at the time made him the youngest-ever published ELT author. During his working life, he was also a trainer, conference presenter, theatre director, radio and TV programme writer and audio producer. Until 2002, he was artistic director of the English Teaching Theatre, a company which performed stage-shows for learners of English all over the world. The ETT made more than 250 tours to 55 countries. Five years ago, Ken decided he had written enough English teaching books and embarked on a Creative Writing Master’s degree at Birkbeck College, University of London. He graduated with merit in 2017.
Almost since the first appearance of Plantagenet Palliser in the novels of Anthony Trollope, he has been accompanied by his effervescent wife, Lady Glencora. As the final installment of the Palliser series begins, she has been cruelly taken from him by a fatal illness, just at the moment when their three children are making their way in the world—and finding marriage partners of their own. But the younger generation does not seem to share the Duke’s values. The loves of both his eldest son and his only daughter in particular trouble him deeply, bringing into conflict his intellectual commitments and his emotional attachments. As with Phineas Finn, there are three notable female characters to add to Trollope’s roster of impressive women: Lady Mabel Grex, the American Isabel Boncassen, and the youngest of the Duke’s children, Lady Mary. The last in particular serves as a foil to the disappointments of Lady Laura Standish seen in the previous novels, and explores again the might-have-beens of choices gone awry. In other ways, too, The Duke’s Children gathers up themes from earlier Palliser novels: forgiveness, constancy, the maturing of youth, the constraints of nature, the disruptions of chance. Importantly, too, it displays complexities of political commitments from the vantage point of a younger generation coming of age. All this seems to have been deliberate. The manuscript for the novel shows Trollope made cuts—very rare in his corpus—of about 65,000 words at the request of the publisher. These often develop more explicitly the back-references to the earlier novels. As the series concludes, Trollope finally gives vent to his own bitter experience of parliamentary elections: “Parliamentary canvassing is not a pleasant occupation. Perhaps nothing more disagreeable, more squalid, more revolting to the senses, more opposed to personal dignity, can be conceived.” This account is often to taken to arise out of Trollope’s own experience of campaigning in Beverly where he stood as a Liberal candidate in east Yorkshire. Despite Trollope’s disgust at the process, and disappointment at the outcome, The Duke’s Children ends with the Duke of Omnium returning to office, and an optimistic outlook for the political careers of the next generation.
Honoria Keyes isn't the gawky, impressionable fifteen-year-old girl she was when she first met Simon Fairchild. Twelve years have passed, and she's a successful artist, enjoying her independence to the fullest. Simon has changed, too. Gone is the beautiful, gentle boy of Honoria's dreams. In his place is a dangerous, damaged man intent on avoiding human contact-and emotions. It would be unthinkable to fall for this difficult, wounded recluse. But then again, Honoria has never been one to do things the easy way ... Simon returned from Waterloo a bitter, broken shell of the man he once was. As if his scarred body and mind aren't bad enough, he's also financially dependent on his brother, the duke, while he convalesces. The duke's fondest wish is for Simon to marry and produce an heir-something Simon has no intention of doing. The one thing he never anticipated? All the unwanted feelings the lovely, talented, and infinitely intriguing Honoria would awaken in him ... Can Honoria and Simon heal the wounds of the past and build a life together? Or will their attempt at happily ever after end up a portrait of failure? Praise for Minerva Spencer's books: "Lovers of historical romance will be hooked on this twisty story of revenge, redemption, and reversal of fortunes." ★Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW of THE FOOTMAN "Spencer serves up an irresistible cocktail of smart characterization, sophisticated sensuality, and sharp wit-all while orchestrating her own clever spin on the popular bluestocking-and-rake trope." ★Booklist STARRED REVIEW of NOTORIOUS "Spencer's characterizations are nuanced and believable, and the passion between the protagonists scorches the pages. Readers will be hooked." ★Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW of THE MUSIC OF LOVE "Spencer's brilliant and original tale of the high seas bursts with wonderfully real protagonists, plenty of action, and passionate romance." ★Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW of BARBAROUS "Fans of Amanda Quick's early historicals will find much to savor." ★Booklist STARRED REVIEW "Sexy, witty, and fiercely entertaining." ★Kirkus STARRED REVIEW "[A] suavely sophisticated hero with sex appeal to spare, and a cascade of lushly detailed love scenes give Spencer's dazzling debut its deliciously fun retro flavor." ★Booklist STARRED REVIEW
Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, Volume I (of 3) But Dennistoun's Dukes of Urbino is not merely a history of the houses of Montefeltro and Della Rovere, of-viii- their famous and most brilliant Court, and of that part of Italy over which they held dominion, but really a work in belles-lettres too, discursive and amusing, as well as instructive. It deals not merely with history, as it seems we have come to understand the word, a thing of politics—in this case the futile and childish politics of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Italy—but illustrates "the arms, arts, and literature of Italy from 1440 to 1630." And indeed this programme was carried out as well as it could be carried out at the time these volumes were written. The book, which has long been almost unprocurable, is full, as it were, of a great leisure, crammed with all sorts of out-of-the-way learning and curious tales and adventures. Sometimes failing in art, and often we may think in judgment, Dennistoun never fails in this, that he is always interested in the people he writes of, interested in their quarrels and love affairs, their hair-breadth escapes and good fortunes. How eagerly he sides with Duke Guidobaldo, chased out of his city of Urbino by Cesare Borgia! It is as though he were assisting at that sudden flight at midnight, and, whole-heartedly the Duke's man as he was, almost fails to understand what Cesare was aiming at, and quite fails to see what Cesare saw too well—the helplessness of Italy, at the mercy, really, of the unconscious nations of the modern world. Such failures as this make his work, indispensable as it is, less valuable than it might have been, but they by no means detract from the general interest of the story. That is a quarry from which much has been hewn, and a good many of those enduring blocks which go to make up so popular and charming a work as John Inglesant came in the first instance from Dennistoun's volumes.
Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino in three volumes presents a history of the houses of Montefeltro and Della Rovere, of their famous and most brilliant Court, and of that part of Italy over which they held dominion. It deals not only with history and politics of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Italy, but it also illustrates "the arms, arts, and literature of Italy from 1440 to 1630."_x000D_ Contents:_x000D_ Book First: Of Urbino and Its Early Accounts_x000D_ Book Second: Of Federigo di Montefeltro, Count and Second Duke of Urbino_x000D_ Book Third: Of Guidobaldo di Montefeltro, Third Duke of Urbino_x000D_ Book Fourth: Of Literature and Art Under the Dukes di Montefeltro at Urbino_x000D_ Book Fifth: Of the Della Rovere Family_x000D_ Book Sixth: Of Francesco Maria Della Rovere, Fourth Duke of Urbino_x000D_ Book Seventh: Of Guidobaldo Della Rovere, Fifth Duke of Urbino_x000D_ Book Eighth: Of Francesco Maria II Della Rovere, Sixth and Last Duke of Urbino_x000D_ Book Ninth: Of Literature and Art Under the Dukes Della Rovere at Urbino