Michael Foot

Disappointment can be salutary. In the 1955 election Michael Foot surprisingly lost his seat. Until then he had been a journalist, albeit a prolific and influential one. He now had more time on his hands. To both his father, Isaac Foot, and himself Jonathan Swift was a hero. His father, who believed writing to be the supreme vocation, now encouraged him to write a book on Swift. The result was The Pen and the Sword. Michael Foot concentrates on the crucial two years of 1710-11. In that time Swift published one of his most devastating polemics The Conduct of the Allies that tore into the Whig government and the Duke of Marlborough in particular. It is an important moment in English History: the pen and the sword fought a duel, and the pen proved the stronger of the two. First published in 1957 it was well and widely reviewed. 'Enthralling ... a fine piece of historical writing.' Spectator 'An exciting story excellently narrated ... a lucid guide to one of the most complicated patterns of intrigue and manoeuvre that the eighteenth-century can provide ... intensely dramatic.' Harold Nicolson, Observer

Jonathan Swift and the Power of the Press

The Pen and the Sword

The History of Mr Wells

H.G.

This is a collection of Michael Foot's essays. The volume is split into four categories: 'A Labour Party Gallery', 'Four Prime Ministers', 'A Miscellany of Cross-breeds' and 'Some True Prophets'.

Loyalists and Loners

Processen mod Mussolini

These two short novels both deal with financial fraud and the misuse of personal position.

Pigswill and the Four Winds

The Pen & the Sword

A new political party - the Angels - appears in British politics. Part cult, part charity, the Angels are well funded, well-led by Michael (named after the Archangel). Their policies are designed to appeal across the UK electorate. They are linked with a Muslim group, the 2 drawn together by the fact that the Qur'an was dictated by the Angel Gabriel. Andrew, who works under cover in a London bank, is tasked to work his way into the Angels and establish their true agenda. In the process of getting accepted, Andrew is subjected to a series of 'tests' - 'labour of Hercules - set by the Leader of the Angels to monitor Andrew's abilities and commitment. These tests force Andre to work with a long-time Angel, Chloe, with whom he falls in love. Andrew gets accepted as a member of the inner circle of Angel advisors and helps to frame a set of policies for the Election. He becomes a fervent supporter of the new cause. A series of traumatic events - ending with an attempted assassination of the Angel's leader - leads up to the Election and helps the Angels break the stranglehold of the UK's established parties. The party is poised to take power; but this is to be very different Government from anything we have seen before.

Angel Manifesto

Isaac Foot led a life almost unimaginable to us today in its fullness and variety. Born in Plymouth, he was a radical and uncompromising Liberal MP, a Methodist preacher, an eloquent orator and lawyer, a lover of life and literature, a unique collector of books, a true Westcountryman and a great family man, lovingly married, first to Eva and then after her death to Kitty, and the father of five sons and two daughters. This volume has been collected and edited by his son Michael and one of his ten grandchildren, Alison Highet, from the immense collection of papers, letters, articles, sermons and family memorabilia that Isaac Foot left behind. The book covers Isaac's early years in Plymouth; his courtship of Eva; his family life; his work as a lawyer; his many election campaigns and his time as Liberal MP for Bodmin; his Methodism, his preaching and his leading role in the Free Church movement; his pledge to teetotalism and his leadership of the temperance cause;

A Westcountry Boy - Apostle of England

Isaac Foot

H.G. Wells

Simon J. James

Originally published: London: John Lane, 1911.

The New Machiavelli

A Vindication of Byron

The Politics of Paradise

Michael Foot's two-volume biography of Aneurin 'Nye' Bevan (1897-1960) - arguably Britain's greatest socialist, indelibly associated with the founding of the National Health Service - is one of the major political biographies of the last century. It is the life of an inspirational politician, written by one who knew and unabashedly admired him. Volume II, first published in 1973, begins with Bevan's role in the founding of a comprehensive National Health Service - this while he was also tasked with addressing the country's severe post-war housing shortage. It takes in his 1951 resignation from the cabinet in protest at the introduction of prescription charges, and his subsequent leadership of a 'Bevanite' Labour left; his publication in 1952 of In Place of Fear; his service as Shadow Foreign Secretary during the Suez crisis in 1956; his controversial reversal of opposition to nuclear weapons in 1957; and his death from cancer in 1960.

A Biography. 1945-1960. two

Aneurin Bevan

The Pen and the Sword, by Michael Foot

An Extravaganza. By Cassius [d. I.] Michael Foot

Brendan and Beverley

Loyalists and Loners is a collection of Michael Foot's essays. Adept at the longer distance though he was, one only has to remember The Pen and the Sword and his Aneurin Bevan biography, the essay very often saw his writing at its sharpest and most eloquent. He has been compared to Arnold Bennett and J. B. Priestley, but there is no exaggeration in extending that to A. J. P. Taylor. This volume, one of his very best, is split into four categories: A Labour Party Gallery, Four Prime Ministers, A Miscellany of Cross-breeds and Some True Prophets. Figures, sometimes unexpected ones, such as Hugh Gaitskell, Winston Churchill, Enoch Powell, Harold Nicolson and Alexander Herzen, are all written about with flair, sympathy and an infectious enthusiasm. There is nothing of the makeshift here, try his essay on Heinrich Heine, imbued with a deep knowledge and written in a sort of way as to make one immediately want to read the subject. That is a rare gift, time and time again Michael Foot demonstrated it.

Debts of Honour

The Alternative to the Thatcher Society

Another Heart and Other Pulses

Michael Foot at 90

"The same depth of feeling is deployed throughout this wide-ranging collection covering the people who have most influenced and enthralled him - natural choices such as Bevan and Bevin, Byron, Hazlitt and Beaverbrook alongside less obvious figures such as Peggy Ashcroft, Bob Boothby and Stanley Morison - and the places - Hampstead, Wales, Venice, Dubrovnik - which have remained closest to his heart. Nor does he forget his beloved dog Dizzy." "Shot through with characteristic verve and passion and reflecting a lifetime's commitment to books and ideas, this is classic Michael Foot."--Jacket.

Essays Old and New, 1953-2003

The Uncollected Michael Foot

Volume 2: 1945-1960

Aneurin Bevan: A Biography

Michael Foot's two-volume biography of Aneurin 'Nye' Bevan (1897-1960) - arguably Britain's greatest socialist, indelibly associated with the founding of the National Health Service, - is one of the major political biographies of the last century. It is the life of an inspirational politician, written by one who knew and unabashedly admired him. Volume I, first published in 1962, describes Bevan's life from his birth in Tredegar in the South Wales Valleys, through his abortive schooling, his employment at a colliery and the subsequent embrace of socialism that would make him a leader among South Wales miners. It follows his path to the House of Commons as a Labour MP with a fast-rising reputation as a defender of the working class; and his marriage in 1934 to fellow firebrand MP Jennie Lee. The volume closes with Labour's landslide election victory of 1945, and Bevan's appointment as Minister of Health.

Michael Foot

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