Simon Heffer

'A riveting account of the pre-First World War years . . . The Age of Decadence is an enormously impressive and enjoyable read.' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times 'A magnificent account of a less than magnificent epoch.' Jonathan Meades, Literary Review The folk-memory of Britain in the years before the Great War is of a powerful, contented, orderly and thriving country. She commanded a vast empire. She bestrode international commerce. Her citizens were living longer, profiting from civil liberties their grandparents only dreamt of, and enjoying an expanding range of comforts and pastimes. The mood of pride and self-confidence is familiar from Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance marches, newsreels of George V's coronation and the London's great Edwardian palaces. Yet things were very different below the surface. In The Age of Decadence Simon Heffer exposes the contradictions of late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain. He explains how, despite the nation's massive power, a mismanaged war against the Boers in South Africa created profound doubts about her imperial destiny. He shows how attempts to secure vital social reforms prompted the twentieth century's gravest constitutional crisis and coincided with the worst industrial unrest in British history. He describes how politicians who conceded the vote to millions more men disregarded women so utterly that female suffragists' public protest bordered on terrorism. He depicts a ruling class that fell prey to degeneracy and scandal. He analyses a national psyche that embraced the motor-car, the sensationalist press and the science fiction of H. G. Wells, but also the Arts and Crafts of William Morris and the nostalgia of A. E. Housman. And he concludes with the crisis that in the summer of 1914 threatened the existence of the United Kingdom - a looming civil war in Ireland. He lights up the era through vivid pen-portraits of the great men and women of the day - including Gladstone, Parnell, Asquith and Churchill, but also Mrs Pankhurst, Beatrice Webb, Baden-Powell, Wilde and Shaw - creating a richly detailed panorama of a great power that, through both accident and arrogance, was forced to face potentially fatal challenges. 'A devastating critique of prewar Britain . . . disturbingly relevant to the world in which we live.' Gerard DeGroot, The Times 'You won't put it down . . . A really riveting read.' Rana Mitter, BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking

Britain 1880 to 1914

The Age of Decadence

Simon Heffer makes an impassioned case for correct English and offers practical advice on how to avoid solecisms and mangled sentences that increasingly pepper everyday speech and writing. This book shows the reader that accuracy and clarity are within the grasp of anyone who is prepared to take the time to master a few simple rules.

the correct way to write and why it matters

Strictly english

The Life of Enoch Powell

Like the Roman

Should England be independent from Scotland? May 1999. The Scots have their first opportunity in 300 years to elect their own parliament. In 2014 that referendum will finally take place. To many in England, the continuing rise of Scottish nationalism causes unease. Scotland could well choose to leave the United Kingdom. In this provocative polemic, Simon Heffer argues that England must let Scotland go. The lessons of trying to coerce Ireland should have been learnt: there is nothing to be gained by pressing the Scots to stay against their will. Heffer argues that an English parliament could begin to concentrate solely on the needs of the English people. There could be economic gains and greater financial accountability in favour of the English taxpayer. If the English would abandon their sentimental attitude to a country that feels little towards them, says Heffer, they could be happier, richer and more cohesive. The Scots believe that independence and nationalism can lead to freedom and self-confidence for Scotland: why not the same for England?

The Reinvention of England

Nor Shall My Sword

Simon Heffer's new book forms an ambitious exploration of the making of the Victorian age and the Victorian mind. Britain in the 1840s was a country wracked by poverty, unrest and uncertainty, where there were attempts to assassinate the Queen and her prime minister, and the ruling class lived in fear of riot and revolution. By the 1880s it was a confident nation of progress and prosperity, transformed not just by industrialisation but by new attitudes to politics, education, women and the working class. That it should have changed so radically was very largely the work of an astonishingly dynamic and high-minded group of people âe" politicians and philanthropists, writers and thinkers âe" who in a matter of decades fundamentally remade the country, its institutions and its mindset, and laid the foundations for modern society. Simon Heffer's first major new book since the success of Strictly English explores this process of transformation, and will delight readers of similar titles such as A. N. Wilson's The Victorians. It traces the evolution of British democracy and shows how early laissez-faire attitudes to the lot of the less fortunate turned into campaigns to improve their lives and prospects. It analyses the birth of new attitudes to education, religion and science. And it shows how even such aesthetic issues as taste in architecture were swept in to broader debates about the direction that the country should take. In the process, Simon Heffer looks at the lives and deeds of major politicians, from the devout and principled Gladstone to the unscrupulous Disraeli; at the intellectual arguments that raged among writers and thinkers such as Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, and Samuel Butler; and at the 'great projects' of the age, from the Great Exhibition to the Albert Memorial. Drawing heavily on previously unpublished documents, he offers a superbly nuanced insight into life in an extraordinary era, populated by extraordinary people âe" and how our forebearsâe(tm) pursuit of perfection gave birth to modern Britain.

The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain

High Minds

Written with full access to all Powell's public and private papers, this biography details Powell's Midlands childhood, his appointment at the age of 25 as Professor of Greek at the University of Adelaide, his writing of poetry, his love for an Irish woman and his "Rivers of Blood" speech.

Originally published: London: Random House, 2014.

An A-Z of Avoidable Errors

Simply English

Originally published: London: Random House, 2010.

The Correct Way to Write ... and Why It Matters

Strictly English

In this major new biography of the Victorian writer and prophet,Simon Heffer reassesses and analyses all Carlyle's main works and essays,his influence on Victorian culture and ideas,and his relationship with the leading literary figures of his day-Dickens,Tennyson,Browning and Matthew Arnold.

A Life of Thomas Carlyle

Moral Desperado

'A brilliant and scholarly biography of an extraordinary figure.' Lord Blake, Country Life 'A fresh, engaging, conscientious account of one of the great Victorians.' Michael Foot, London Review of Books 'A thorough and convincing account of 'the sage''. Peter Ackroyd, Times Thomas Carlyle was the most influential man of letters of his day, and his vivid account of the French Revolution remains one of the classic histories. Even George Eliot, no admirer, wrote: 'It is an idle question to ask whether his books will be read a century hence; if they were all burnt as the grandest of Suttes on his funeral pyre, it would only be like cutting down an oak after its acorns have sown a forest.' Simon Heffer draws upon previously unavailable papers to reassess a magnificent, defiant and often lonely individualist whose idiosyncratic and passionate books brought him universal fame.

"Be in no doubt: the beer was drunk but the man drank the beer." "We must avoid vulgarities like 'front up'. If someone is 'fronting up' a television show, then he is presenting it." Simon Heffer's incisive and amusingly despairing emails to colleagues at the The Daily Telegraph about grammatical mistakes and stylistic slips have attracted a growing band of ardent fans over recent years. Now, in his new book Strictly English, he makes an impassioned case for an end to the sloppiness that has become such a hallmark of everyday speech and writing, and shows how accuracy and clarity are within the grasp of anyone who is prepared to take the time to master a few simple rules. If you wince when you see "different than" in print, or are offended by people who think that "infer" and "imply" mean the same thing, then this book will provide reassurance that you are not alone. And if you believe that precise and elegant English really does matter, then it will prove required reading.

The correct way to write ... and why it matters

The Daily Telegraph

The Telegraph newspapers maintain their high standards of accuracy, literacy and grammar thanks to a comprehensive style book used by all their journalists, covering everything from the correct title of a baron to the spelling of Gorden Kaye’s Christian name when writing about Allo, Allo. But its rigour and exactitude are complemented by a deliciously baleful, even testy, wit – a quality much valued by, and indeed demonstrated by, its own readership in Aurum’s hugely successful Unpublished Letters book of Christmas 2009, Am I Alone in Thinking…? As a result this style guide is a uniquely enjoyable and frequently very funny read in itself. Now Aurum publishes a trade edition, as a handsome little hardback volume, decorated with a cover cartoon by Matt. It will be an essential addition to the bookshelf of anyone who has to write for public consumption, but will also make an ideal gift.

Simon Heffer

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