The county of Essex has rolling arable farmland, Epping Forest, sleepy villages, busy market towns and secluded backwaters - a wide variety of settings for murder. This selection of crimes uncovers not only famous cases, but also previously unpublished dramatic and tragic tales. The accounts included here come from a time when murder was a capital offence, carrying the ultimate penalty for the perpetrator, and when the difference between a verdict of innocence or guilt rested on a single piece of evidence, or the skill of the barrister in defence. Linda Stratmann has used original trial transcripts, material from local and national archives, contemporary accounts and the memoirs of pathologists, police and those in the legal profession in the course of her extensive research into crimes that have shocked the county. The killings explored date from as far back as the eighteenth century when the smuggler 'Colchester Jack' shot a confederate in the stomach in a row over stolen goods. They also include the case of a nineteenth-century female poisoner from Clavering and the brutal murder of a taxi driver in 1943 by two US servicemen at Birch. Supported by contemporary illustrations, "Essex Murders" reveals that behind the county's peaceful facade lies a murky criminal heritage.

A trifle cocked at the spine, not objectionably so; otherwise fine. (Cocking can be eliminated by keeping upright on shelf for a few months.)

In November 1979, Selma James spoke at the Cheltenham Literary Festival. Her subject was 'Ms Jane Austen', and she was enthusiastically received. Here is what she had to say, much expanded and enriched.

Elie Kedourie has been variously described as an angry young man, a sceptic, a conservative, an Oakeshottian, a pessimist, an imperialist, a Zionist, an anti-Zionist, an anti-Arab, and lately even starry-eyed about imperialism - all labels which attempt to categorize the scholar but reveal nothing about the man or his work. This little book is not a biography. It is a collection of essays evaluating his work and his legacy to scholarship. The various contributors, ranging widely in interest and occupation, have indicated their relationship with him in their essays. Of his own work, three pieces are included. One of his last essays, 'The Jews of Babylon and Baghdad', is published here for the first time.

Professor Prawer's new book documents Heinrich Heine's lifelong involvement with England and the English. It shows him to have been a witty and intelligent observer of English men and women, institutions and politics, and books and journals of his own day; and to have extended his observation backwards into English history and literature of the past in a way that constantly welds the past to the present. The picture which emerges is one shaped by traditional preconceptions, political considerations, social philosophies and aesthetic experiences. The author (who is an authority on Heine) has amassed a vast amount of quotations; many of these passages have never been available in English before. The book will be an important reference work for scholars of nineteenth-century German literature and history; and, since all quotations are rendered in English, it will appeal to general readers interested in verbal caricature and in the changing image of England and the English in Europe.