<div><B>An off-the-beaten-path tour of the city&rsquo;s hidden highlights, and the stories behind them.</B><BR />  <BR /> London is full of curiosities. Who knew that beneath the Albert Memorial lies a chamber resembling a church crypt? Or that there are catacombs under Camden? Who would expect to find a lighthouse in East London, sphinxes in South London, dummy houses in West London, or a huge bust of film director Alfred Hitchcock in North London?<BR />  <BR /> How many of those who walk past Cleopatra&rsquo;s Needle pause to consider why a 3,000-year-old Egyptian monument stands beside the Thames? How many know that what was once London&rsquo;s smallest police station can be seen in Trafalgar Square? Or that pineapples are used in the architectural design of so many buildings? Or why there are memorials to the <I>Mayflower</I> and Pilgrim Fathers in Rotherhithe? Learn more about the capital of curiosities in this delightful guide for lovers of history, trivia, and travel.</div>

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London Curiosities

<div><B>Discover some of the Victorian Era’s most outlandish inventions—from the world-changing to the simply weird—in this look at nineteenth-century innovation.</B><br/><br/>We all know that some of history’s greatest inventions came about in the Victorian age. But in <I>The Ingenious Victorians</I>, John Wade goes beyond those famous advances to explore some of the weird and wonderful ideas and projects that have largely been forgotten. He also offers a new perspective on some of the era’s well-known inventions by shedding light on how they emerged.<br/><br/>Discover the fascinating true stories behind the world’s largest glass structure; cameras disguised as bowler hats; the London Underground as a steam railway; safety coffins designed to prevent premature burial; unusual medical uses for electricity; the first traffic lights, which exploded a month after their erection in Westminster; and the birth and rapid rise to popularity of the cinema ... as well as many other ingenious inventions.</div>

The Ingenious Victorians

<div><B>A detailed look at the British world of science fiction in the 1950s.</B><BR />  <BR /> John Wade grew up in the 1950s, a decade that has since been dubbed the &ldquo;golden age of science fiction.&rdquo; It was a wonderful decade for the genre, but not so great for young fans. With early television broadcasts being advertised for the first time as &ldquo;unsuitable for children&rdquo; and the inescapable barrier of the &ldquo;X&rdquo; certificate in the cinema barring anyone under the age of sixteen, the author had only the radio to fall back on&mdash;and that turned out to be more fertile for the budding SF fan than might otherwise have been thought. Which is probably why, as he grew older, rediscovering those old TV broadcasts and films that had been out of bounds when he was a kid took on a lure that soon became an obsession.<BR />  <BR /> For him, the super-accuracy and amazing technical quality of today&rsquo;s science fiction films pale into insignificance beside the radio, early TV and B-picture films about people who built rockets in their back gardens and flew them to lost planets, or tales of aliens who wanted to take over, if not our entire world, then at least our bodies. This book is a personal account of John Wade&rsquo;s fascination with the genre across all the entertainment media in which it appeared&mdash;the sort of stuff he reveled in as a young boy&mdash;and still enjoys today.<BR />  <BR /><B>&ldquo;Not only a well&ndash;researched book grounded in hundreds of sources, but also an unmistakable labor of love.&rdquo; &mdash;New York Journal of Books</B></div>

The Golden Age of Science Fiction

<div><B>A comprehensive history of the development and use of cameras in recording British military conflicts from the 1850s to the 1950s.</B><br/><br/>Books about war and the pictures that came out of conflict usually concentrate on the picture content. But behind every picture there is a camera—and that’s what this book is about. Profusely illustrated throughout with pictures of the cameras, rather than the pictures they took, it looks at one hundred years of conflict from the Crimean War to the Korean War. It begins in the days when a photographer needed to be more of a scientist than an artist, such were the difficulties of shooting and processing any photograph. It ends with the cameras whose compact dimensions, versatility and ease of use meant that photographers could largely forget the science and concentrate on the art. Some cameras simply recorded events. Others defined and changed the way those events proceeded. These were the cameras that went to war, and this is their story.<br/><br/><B>Praise for <I>Cameras at War</I></B><br/><br/><B>“An amazing collection of superb photographs beginning with some from the Crimean War—coupled with a brilliant narrative that emphasizes the use of photography to record conflict. Where would we be without such evidentiary mementoes?” —<I>Books Monthly </I>(UK)</B></div>

Cameras at War

<div>Over the years many weird and wonderful types of transport have come and gone, some of which succeeded against all odds, others that spectacularly failed, and some that never got beyond a designer’s drawing board. Railway engines driven by horses, for example. Or maybe the surprising number of cars, boats and trains driven by aeroplane propellers. In this book you will find cars that flew, cars that floated on water and boats that ran on roads; steam-powered aeroplanes, electric submarines, railways driven by pneumatic air, aircraft with flapping wings… and a whole lot more. If you are a person who would like to have flown in an airship, or travelled in a train whose carriage sat on stilts above the sea with its tracks below the water, or dreamed of riding on a London to New York railway that took twelve days to travel the long way around the world, or maybe just fancied fixing your bicycle to a railway track, then this book is for you.</div>

John Wade
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Books By John Wade (5 Books)

London Curiosities

The Ingenious Victorians

The Golden Age of Science Fiction

Cameras at War

Transport Curiosities, 1850–1950

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John WadeFollow this author

Books By John Wade (5 Books)

London Curiosities

The Ingenious Victorians

The Golden Age of Science Fiction

Cameras at War

Transport Curiosities, 1850–1950

RELATED POSTS ABOUT JOHN WADE

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More from

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© 2024 OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

John Wade
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