Best Selling Books by Anne Sebba

The first full scale biography of Wallis Simpson to be written by a woman, exploring the mind of one of the most glamorous and reviled figures of the Twentieth Century, a character who played prominently in the blockbuster film The King's Speech. This is the story of the American divorcee notorious for allegedly seducing a British king off his throne. "That woman," so called by Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, was born Bessie Wallis Warfield in 1896 in Baltimore. Neither beautiful nor brilliant, she endured an impoverished childhood, which fostered in her a burning desire to rise above her circumstances. Acclaimed biographer Anne Sebba offers an eye-opening account of one of the most talked about women of her generation. It explores the obsessive nature of Simpson's relationship with Prince Edward, the suggestion that she may have had a Disorder of Sexual Development, and new evidence showing she may never have wanted to marry Edward at all. Since her death, Simpson has become a symbol of female empowerment as well as a style icon. But her psychology remains an enigma. Drawing from interviews and newly discovered letters, That Woman shines a light on this captivating and complex woman, an object of fascination that has only grown with the years.

The New York Times–bestselling author explores WWII Paris history and tells the stories of how women survived—or didn’t—during the Nazi occupation. Paris in the 1940s was a place of fear, power, aggression, courage, deprivation, and secrets. During the occupation, the swastika flew from the Eiffel Tower and danger lurked on every corner. While Parisian men were either fighting at the front or captured and forced to work in German factories, the women of Paris were left behind where they would come face to face with the German conquerors on a daily basis, as waitresses, shop assistants, or wives and mothers, increasingly desperate to find food to feed their families as hunger became part of everyday life. When the Nazis and the puppet Vichy regime began rounding up Jews to ship east to concentration camps, the full horror of the war was brought home and the choice between collaboration and resistance became unavoidable. Sebba focuses on the role of women, many of whom faced life and death decisions every day. After the war ended, there would be a fierce settling of accounts between those who made peace with or, worse, helped the occupiers and those who fought the Nazis in any way they could. “Anne Sebba has the nearly miraculous gift of combining the vivid intimacy of the lives of women during The Occupation with the history of the time. This is a remarkable book.” —Edmund de Waal, New York Times–bestselling author “Wonderfully researched . . . puts women’s stories, and the complications of their lives under Occupation, centre stage.” —Kate Mosse, New York Times–bestselling author

Mother Teresa of Calcutta--few figures in the twentieth century have received such adulation. This diminutive Albanian nun was frequently cited as the living embodiment of Christian kindness, received the Nobel Peace Prize, and was hailed as a living saint. Yet the respect she received was not unanimous, and toward the end of her life serious, measured criticisms were directed at this modern icon, who had once seemed beyond reproach. In her fascinating work, Anne Sebba looks carefully at all these views, giving the only objective account of Mother Teresa's life and work. The first half of the book follows the life of young Agnes Bojaxhiu, from her childhood in Serbian-dominated Skopje, to her decision to join the religious life, to her arrival in India during the British Raj. In the second half, Anne Sebba examines the many difficult issues surrounding Mother Teresa's work: her attitudes toward abortion and rape, her association with dictators such as the Duvaliers in Haiti, her medical practices, and her fund-raising ethics. Alongside these aspects, Anne Sebba also highlights Mother Teresa's dedication to the sick, dying, and destitute, and looks at the motivation that drove this remarkable woman. Hers was an extraordinary life, full of paradox. She was a woman of enormous courage, love, and determination, and her legacy poses some of the most profound questions of our age.

New York Times bestselling author Anne Sebba's moving biography of Ethel Rosenberg, the wife and mother whose execution for espionage-related crimes defined the Cold War and horrified the world. In June 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a couple with two young sons, were led separately from their prison cells on Death Row and electrocuted moments apart. Both had been convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage for the Soviet Union, despite the fact that the US government was aware that the evidence against Ethel was shaky at best and based on the perjury of her own brother. This book is the first to focus on one half of that couple in more than thirty years, and much new evidence has surfaced since then. Ethel was a bright girl who might have fulfilled her personal dream of becoming an opera singer, but instead found herself struggling with the social mores of the 1950’s. She longed to be a good wife and perfect mother, while battling the political paranoia of the McCarthy era, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and a mother who never valued her. Because of her profound love for and loyalty to her husband, she refused to incriminate him, despite government pressure on her to do so. Instead, she courageously faced the death penalty for a crime she hadn’t committed, orphaning her children. Seventy years after her trial, this is the first time Ethel’s story has been told with the full use of the dramatic and tragic prison letters she exchanged with her husband, her lawyer and her psychotherapist over a three-year period, two of them in solitary confinement. Hers is the resonant story of what happens when a government motivated by fear tramples on the rights of its citizens.

After a three-day romance Brooklyn-born Jennie Jerome married into the British aristocracy to become Lady Randolph Churchill. At a time when women were afforded few freedoms, she was a cornerstone of high society and a behind-the-scenes political dynamo. However it was Jennie's love life that marked her out, causing scandal in its day and earning her the epithet 'more panther than woman'. She was sexually fearless at a time when women were supposed to be sexually vapid. Yet, in other ways, Jennie was deeply loyal to her husband. When he was dying of syphilis she took him on a round-the-world trip to conceal his violence and mania. He returned in a straitjacket with only weeks to live. After Randolph's death her great project became her son, Winston, with whom she was entwined in an intense mutual dependency. Jennie died suddenly in 1921 after a dramatic fall downstairs, having tripped over her high heels. Although Winston was not to become the nation's leader for another two decades, he had already acquired from his mother an unshakeable faith in his destiny. With unprecedented access to private family correspondence, newly discovered archival material and interviews with Jennie's two surviving granddaughters, Anne Sebba draws a vivid and frank portrait of her subject. She repositions Jennie as a woman who refused to be cowed by her era's customary repression of women. Neither a bad mother nor a sexually predatory wife, Jennie Churchill was creative and passionate, determined to live life to the full.

'It is an extraordinary story.' "Sunday Times" "" The name 'Laura Ashley' is an international byword for the classic English countrywoman living in domestic bliss. But what was Laura Ashley the woman really like, behind the facade of the family-based company that not only used her name, but was moulded on her personal image? Anne Sebba describes Laura the astute business woman with her sure instinct for forecasting trends, her canny feel for colour and fabric and her often brilliant but perfectly simple ideas. She describes Laura the wife and mother: her relationship with Bernard, her sadness at leaving Wales and her family for life on the Continent, her conviction that her place was with her husband. An absorbing biography of this remarkable woman who became one of the leading influences in the twentieth century on British design and marketing. 'This is a moving book. Anne Sebba has written a vivid, true story. She writes with frankness and without frills.' "Sunday Telegraph"

Jennie (Jerome) Churchill was not merely the most talked about American woman in London society, she was also a dynamic political and social force. Sebba draws on newly discovered correspondences and archives to examine the tempestuous life of the mother of Winston Churchill.

On August 30th 1841 William John Bankes, former Tory MP, pioneer Egyptologist and renowned traveller, was caught in compromising circumstances with a guardsman in London's Green Park. Faced with the death penalty, he fled to exile in Venice, leaving forever his beloved house, Kingston Lacy in Dorset. It was the vicarious embellishment of this house that was to be his only enduring passion. Brilliantly written and highly readable, The Exiled Collector is the first ever biography of William Bankes, recounting his dramatic life story. It examines the psychology of collecting, the pain and creativity of exile and affords a revealing insight into the minds of a hypocritical ruling elite in early Victorian Britain.

A revised edition of the publisher’s inaugural publication in 1990, which won the Pandora Award from Women-in-Publishing. Inspirational in its original format, this new edition features poems, stories, essays and interviews with 30 + women writers, both emerging authors and luminaries of contemporary literature such as: – Choices: The Writing of Possession by A.S. Byatt – Becoming a Writer by Saskia Calliste – Jenny – a song by April de Angelis – Interview with Kit de Waal – Anne Hathaway by Carol Ann Duffy – Let the World Burn through you by Sian Evans – Early Women Writers by Philippa Gregory – The Creative Process by Mary Hamer – The Writing Life by Jackie Kay – Screen Diversity by Shuchi Kothari – Writing Plays by Bryony Lavery – The Novelist as Wanderer by Annee Lawrence – Interview with Roseanne Liang – Mei Kwei, I love you by Suchen Christine Lim – The Badminton Court by Jaki McCarrick – Interview with Laura Miles – The Motherload by Raman Mundair – The Feminist Library by Magda Oldziejewska – Fortune Favours The Brave... by Kaite O’Reilly – Interview with Jacqueline Pepall – The Art of Translation by Gabi Reigh – Conditions of Amefricanity -Djamila Ribeiro – Inspiration: Where does it come from? by Fiona Rintoul – Interview with Jasvinder Sanghera – A Room of One’s Own ...or Not? by Anne Sebba – Being a Feminist Writer by Kalista Sy – Mslexia by Debbie Taylor – My Mother, Reading a Novel by Madeleine Thien – Interview with Clare Tomalin – Fortune by Ida Vitale, transl. Tanya Huntington – Interview with Sarah Waters – Virginia Woolf...100 years on by Emma Woolf Includes the original writing workshops plus illustrations from contemporary and vintage illustrators. Guest editor Ann Sandham has compiled the new collection. Reviews: The Women Writers Handbook is a superb, powerful collection of writings from 30 women that are considered to be the emerging authors and luminaries of contemporary fiction, from Carol Ann Duffy to Kit De Waal. With its short chapters, background to who the author is and with 20% of all profits going towards the campaign for a full-sized statue of Virginia Woolf, the first in the UK, it is absolutely a book to buy, read and help to highlight the creativities of women, as well as inspiring other women to believe that they can also do it too. Not only is every piece of work that is included different, well written and informative but the way that the whole book is laid out with inspiring quotes but also beautiful illustrations from women. I loved the activities that can be found at the end of the book, writing workshop activities that could be used within a group in order to breakdown boundaries, to help overcome the fears and misgivings of individuals who would like to become writers, as well as activities to help create depth in characters. I think this inclusion of interactivity, as well as giving a feminist spin on fairy tales is a cleverly unique concept. ...its absolutely one to pick up and for a worthy cause too. --thereadingcloset Knowledgeably compiled and deftly edited, 'The Women Writers Handbook'; by Ann Sandham (Commissioning Editor for Ladybird Children's Books at Penguin Random House) also features an informative Foreword by Cheryl Robson (the Aurora Metro Books publisher). Of special note is the inclusion of a instruction article on how to operate a writing workshop, a five page Resource Directory (compiled by Saskia Calliste), and a fun one-page Quiz. Informative, thought-provoking, inspiring, 'The Women Writers Handbook'; is an extraordinary, unique, and thoroughly 'reader friendly' in both organization and presentation. Certain to be an immediate and enduringly popular addition to personal, professional, community, college, and university library Writing/Publishing collections in general, 'The Women Writers Handbook'; is unreservedly recommended for Women's Fiction, Literature, and Writing supplemental curriculum reading lists in particular. --Midwest Book Review As a young woman both studying literature and harbouring dreams of becoming a writer myself, it seems to me that the world of writers is a great looming circle of male literary greats. Dickens, Wilde, Shakespeare, Scott, Browning the list of the most respected literary figures seems both to be endless and decidedly full of men. The whole industry seems overwhelmingly male with merely a few select women being let into this strange world governed by men. Although I have felt very welcomed and my voice heard in my studies and critique of literature, there seems to be precious few ways for me to become a meaningful contributor to the discipline. That is why it is so important that a book like this exists, giving guidance like this, telling stories like these, and using women's voices to do so. Sandham offers a helping hand to all aspiring female writers to aid them in navigating their ventures into the literary world. The Handbook offers a space to women from all backgrounds to share their stories in my favourite segment: Women's Voices. One story that stood out to me most was told by Magda Oldziejewska in The Feminist Library. Oldziejewska recounts her experience of discovering the Feminist Library; an archive in London which exists to preserve the lives, works and memories of many women. I especially liked this piece as it shows that there does in fact exist a space for women to feel not only safe and welcomed, but actively valued in the literary world. A space where we can learn about the forgotten women who came before us and ensure that the great female powers of our time do not slip into the void of lost female writers. The importance of creating access points to the literary world for women is monumental and Sandham has so beautifully created another in her making of this Handbook. The later segments of the Handbook (Writing Workshops and Workshop Sessions) give an incredible level of insight into the more finnicky aspects of serious writing with guides on Developing Complex Characters to Self-censorship. The frank discussion provided throughout the workshop segments is an indispensable tool for any budding author looking to get real and seriously improve the quality of their writing. I would recommend The Women Writers' Handbook not only to women with explicit intentions to embark on their literary careers who need some support, but to anyone who seeks to better understand both the struggles and triumphs of women in the world of literature. --portobellobookblog What a fabulous source book - full of inspirational essays, short stories, poems and interviews with some top female writers - about the writing process, feminism and the experience of female authors, designed to get the juices flowing for any woman who has the hankering to write. If this was not enough to make you want to grab your note book and pen and embark on a writing project, then there are also writing exercises designed to stimulate the creative impulses and a directory of resources to help you on your way! And... quotes from some of the top women writers, both contemporary, and from history, are spread liberally throughout the publication, as encouragement. If I have not already persuaded you that you need a copy of this book to hand on the writing desk you are now surely going to purchase (should you not have one already), perhaps it will help if you know that 20% of the profits from the sale of this book will go towards the Virginia Woolf statue campaign! --Sue, Vine Voice Thrilled to get my hands on a copy of this updated version of The Women Writers’ Handbook, released to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Aurora Metro books. Edited by Ann Sandham, a fabulous collection of poems, stories and interviews from a diverse group of internationally acclaimed women. Also included are the workshops from the original edition of this anthology and there is a newly updated resources list. As well as being a good read with lovely black and white drawings dotted throughout, it’s a really useful book - one I know I will return to time and time again. In addition, 20% of each sale is being donated to the Virginia Woolf statue campaign to go towards funding a statue of the esteemed British writer - the author of pioneering essays on women’s writing and the politics of power, so this is very apt. --Daisy Hollands In aid of the Virginia Woolf Statue campaign at: www.aurorametro.org/virgini-woolf-statue

La biografía de la mujer que puso en peligro a la monarquía británica.

Autorka największego skandalu obyczajowego XX wieku. Kobieta, dla której król zrezygnował z tronu! Bohaterka obsypanego Oscarami filmu Jak zostać królem! Anne Sebba posługując się niepublikowanymi dotąd materiałami, pokazuje, po raz pierwszy w Polsce, tę kobietę i rzuca nowe światło na tę niezwykle skomplikowaną i urzekającą postać.

Par quel miracle Bessie Wallis Warfield, jeune américaine roturière née hors mariage et déjà deux fois divorcée, devient-elle la duchesse de Windsor ? Par amour pour elle, Édouard VIII, rencontré en 1931 lors d’une partie de chasse, renonce à son trône de roi d’Angleterre et d’empereur des Indes, créant un véritable cataclysme au sein de l’Empire britannique. Drôle et intelligente, calculatrice et ambitieuse, soupçonnée d’entretenir des liaisons dangereuses avec le régime nazi, la duchesse de Windsor règne sur la vie parisienne de l’après-guerre pendant plus de trente ans. Avec son style singulier, Wallis la scandaleuse se met au service des plus grandes maisons de luxe – Givenchy, Goyard, Cartier ou Roger Vivier – et devient une icône de la mode et un symbole d’émancipation. À partir d’archives inédites et après une longue enquête, Anne Sebba retrace la vie de cette femme fascinante, sulfureuse et mystérieuse qui aurait pu devenir reine.

'Superb and timely' KATE MOSSE 'Impressive, important, deeply moving' SARAH WATERS 'Brilliant' ANTHONY HOROWITZ What role could music play in a death camp? What was the effect on those women who owed their survival to their participation in a Nazi propaganda project? And how did it feel to be forced to provide solace to the perpetrators of a genocide that claimed the lives of their family and friends? In 1943, German SS officers in charge of Auschwitz-Birkenau ordered that an orchestra should be formed among the female prisoners. Almost fifty women and girls from eleven nations were assembled to play marching music to other inmates - forced labourers who left each morning and returned, exhausted and often broken, at the end of the day - and give weekly concerts for Nazi officers. Individual members were sometimes summoned to give solo performances of an officer's favourite piece of music. It was the only entirely female orchestra in any of the Nazi prison camps and, for almost all of the musicians chosen to take part, being in the orchestra was to save their lives. In The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz, award-winning historian Anne Sebba tells their astonishing story with sensitivity and care.

1940, les Allemands occupent Paris, une ville vidée de ses hommes. Coco Chanel ferme boutique et s'installe au Ritz. Irène Némirovsky comprend qu'il est trop tard pour échapper à son destin et entame son chef-d'oeuvre, Suite française. Germaine Tillion participe aux débuts de la Résistance et Simone de Beauvoir fait comme si de rien n'était tandis que la vie mondaine bat son plein autour de Josée de Chambrun et Corinne Luchaire. À 19 ans, Simone Signoret n'a d'autre choix que de travailler pour gagner de quoi faire vivre sa famille et Rose Valland refuse d'assister impuissante au pillage des musées. Des scènes des cabarets au camp de Drancy en passant par les loges de concierge et les queues devant les magasins sans oublier les maisons closes, la vie de 20 millions de Françaises a été bouleversée par l'histoire. Tout semble avoir été dit sur la période de l'Occupation et les années qui l'ont suivie mais nul ne les avait jamais évoquées du point de vue des femmes. Anne Sebba leur rend la parole dans cette vaste fresque humaine. Auteure de nombreuses biographies, Anne Sebba est historienne. Elle vit et travaille à Londres.

New York, 19 juin 1953. Le lendemain de leur quatorzième anniversaire de mariage, Ethel et Julius Rosenberg traversent le couloir de la mort et sont électrocutés à quelques minutes d’intervalle pour actes d’espionnage. Aucune preuve n’accuse Ethel. Pourtant, aux yeux de l’Amérique, elle est la coupable idéale : communiste, juive, complice de son mari espion. Elle doit payer. À partir d’archives inédites, la biographe Anne Sebba lève le voile sur l’une des plus graves erreurs judiciaires de l’histoire. Comment un gouvernement aveuglé par la peur a-t-il si hâtivement scellé le sort d’une femme, mère de deux garçons ? Ce livre est le récit d’une terrible trahison, celle d’un pays et d’une famille. Mais il est surtout un vibrant plaidoyer en faveur de la femme derrière la victime, au courage et à la dignité exceptionnels, qui par amour, refusa de se soumettre. ANNE SEBBA est une conférencière et journaliste britannique. Autrice de plusieurs biographies à succès (Les Parisiennes : leur vie, leurs amours, leurs combats 1939 – 1949, La Librairie Vuibert, 2018 ou encore Wallis la scandaleuse, Tallandier, 2019), elle raconte le destin de femmes emblématiques.

A history of the art of sampler making on both sides of the Atlantic displays beautiful examples of the varied forms that samplers have taken over the centuries and describes such techniques as cut-and-drawn work and white work

Mother Teresa, the famous nun who became famous for her work among the poor of India, spent her early life in the Balkans as a member of a double minority, being both Albanian & a Catholic in a Serb-dominated area. Anne Sebba is the first to uncover & assess the formative experiences that went into the making of this latter-day candidate for sainthood. She examines Mother Teresa's controversial attitudes to abortion, contraception & rape, & considers the future of the 4,000 nuns belonging to the international force that the Missionaries of Charity have become. The book is illustrated with black-&-white photographs.

Neste livro, a autora nos dá um relato imparcial e equilibrado da vida e obra de Madre Teresa. É a primeira a situá-la em um contexto histórico e geográfico e, desde que foi nomeada a sucessora da Madre Teresa, a primeira a avaliar o futuro das 4.000 irmãs dessa ordem de dimensões mundiais. Além de apresentar uma biografia detalhada, oferece uma análise das atividades missionárias e dos apostolados realizados por Madre Teresa.

A notre époque de plus en plus matérialiste, peu de personnes vivantes sont qualifiées de saintes. C'était le cas de Mère Teresa. Or, depuis 1990 cette façon de voir les choses a changé, comme le montre Anne Sebba dans sa biographie fascinante et rigoureusement objective de la " sainte des trottoirs ". Après plusieurs années d'investigation sur le terrain, l'auteur révèle en effet la vérité cachée de Mère Teresa et de ses 4 000 Missionnaires de la charité, aujourd'hui présents dans 105 pays. Parmi les sujets abordés par Anne Sebba : l'attitude de Mère Teresa quant à l'avortement, ses relations avec certains dictateurs, son rapport à l'argent, sa politique d'adoption, ses négligences et son incompétence sur le plan médical, son éthique moralisatrice et sa théologie dépassée, etc. Anne Sebba a interviewé plus d'une centaine de médecins, de religieuses, de responsables et de volontaires d'associations caritatives. Anne Sebba est allée aussi en Albanie pour obtenir des informations sur les origines mystérieuses de Mère Teresa. Elle s'est rendue à Calcutta, pour parler avec la " sainte des caniveaux " en personne et avec d'autres membres de son ordre. Anne Sebba a ensuite enquêté auprès de nombreuses organisations catholiques, dont le Vatican. Nombre de ces faits, encore inconnus du public, pourront paraître choquants aux yeux des lecteurs, mais ce livre décapant met aussi en évidence le dévouement de Mère Teresa envers les pauvres, les mourants et les plus démunis, ceci au cœur d'une vie extraordinaire, pleine de paradoxes et de contradictions.