News

An absorbing account of life inside the world’s oldest and richest auction house, this book brings to life the personalities, ambition and shrewd business dealing which operate behind the glamour and glitz of Sotheby’s as its experts compete with their only significant rival, Christie’s.

Sotheby’s makes its money by persuading those who are already laden with material goods that their happiness depends on owning still more. Their rummage sales for the rich snare collectors who are willing to pay headline-grabbing sums because, ultimately, they are in search of something beyond mere objects: they are bidding for class.

The story of a film star legend.

Long before she became a princess, Grace Kelly was a legend, a fabled movie star whose aloof and aristocratic bearing belied a deep sensuality within. Grace the icon and Grace the woman were two very different creatures. She was deeply mourned when her car careened off a narrow road in September 1982.

Grace reveals new details about the accident and about the circumstances surrounding the star’s medical care and death. It is also the first balanced portrait of a complex, deeply conflicted actress, wife, and mother who dared to make her dreams come true – a haunting tale of a beloved tragic heroine.

The life and times of Henry VIII – delve into a story of wealth, power and the unflinching relentlessness of a man who held…

Meyer Lansky and the gangster life. Little Man is a book about organised crime unlike any other yet written. If, in the mythology of…

The men and the machine.

The story of Henry Ford and the dynasty he founded is in many ways the story of America itself – a tale of energy, enterprise, raw and ruthless ambition and fabulous rewards. The farm boy from the Michigan woods who fought his way up to become one of the wealthiest men in the world, Henry Ford became a folk hero to his countrymen, the subject of countless legends that he himself loved to gild.

To research this book, Robert went to live in Detroit, the Mecca of the American car industry, to immerse himself in his subject. He went to work on the assembly line, that most famous of Henry Ford’s inventions, and interviewed members of the Ford family, their friends and their enemies.

What makes the richest of the rich tick in the modern age?

Blue blood and noble birth have always captured the imagination. This book traces the modern history of the aristocracy through the six great noble families who formed the subject of Robert’s BBC television series of the same name:

Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster, landlord of Mayfair and Belgravia and the wealthiest man in Britain.

Dona Victoria Eugenia, Duchess of Medinaceli, the most titled woman in the world and the owner of over ninety castles in Spain.

Read about one of England’s greatest characters in a vivid tale of exploration, court opulence and calculated power grabbings. Sir Walter Raleigh was the…

Arabia and the House of Sa’ud

The Kingdom is a mysterious place, and it unveils its mysteries only grudgingly. Someone who takes up the challenge, who goes to live among its people, who visits its palaces and oil wells and bedouin tents, and who is invited inside the homes of ordinary Sa’udi Arabians, humble and mighty, encounters true warmth and hospitality, much that is banal, a few things that are scarcely believable – and a great deal of secrecy. This book is a mixture of all these things…’

The Kingdom is Sa’udi Arabia – the only country in the world to bear the name of the family that rules it. It is the story of a country that has haunted our imagination for centuries, and that haunts it still.

The story of the 20th century’s most adored woman in England.

Princess is the story of the girl who sprang from obscurity to become the most talked-about and the most photographed woman in the world. This first ever biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, is a unique insight into the style and character of its royal subject. Published in the year of the late Princess of Wales’ twenty-first birthday, Princess is a sumptuous and elegant celebration, capturing all the freshness, spontaneity and charm of the young woman who was destined to be Queen of England – but whose life turned out very differently.