Fourth Estate imprint: 163 books

A sensational tale of obsession and murder from a wonderful writer. ‘An outstanding novel, fresh and unusual [with] all the dirt, stink, rasp and flavour of the time.’ Daily Telegraph ‘Early in the English Civil War, a body is dredged from the pond of a Royalist estate. “As Meat Loves Salt”...

A biography of an unsung Victorian hero, Joseph Paxton was the man behind the garden design at Chatsworth and the Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Victorians heralded a new era of creativity, a revolutionary fervour seizing all forms of design. Joseph Paxton was a leading light...

The amazing true story of how London became home to the Russian super-rich – told for the first time ever. A dazzling tale of incredible wealth, ferocious disputes, beautiful women, private jets, mega-yachts, the world’s best footballers – and chauffeur-driven Range Rovers with tinted windows....

Penelope Fitzgerald, the Booker Prize-winning author of ‘Offshore’ and ‘The Blue Flower’, turns her attention to the remarkable life of the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones. ‘I mean by a picture a beautiful, romantic dream of something that never was, never will be, in a light better...

I Know This Much – by Gary Kemp, Spandau Ballet's prime mover – is simply the freshest, most exciting and best-written memoir to arrive for years. Gary's story begins in North London, where the Kemp family rented a home with no bathrooms and chickens in the yard. After a couple of failed attempts...

"I want to make an album of real genius, to sit alongside the Stones' 'Exile On Main Street', and Big Star's 'Third'" (Peter Buck, R.E.M. 1991) The definitive biography of Big Star, the most influential band of the last 30 years. Although Big Star were together for less than four years and...

‘You need this book. Your mom needs this book. Your best friend needs this book. Everyone needs a dose of Happy Fat!’ Julie Murphy ‘I am a fat person and I love my body. I feel lucky to be able to say that – it has taken a lot of work and a lot of time. I want to tell you what I have learned...

The extraordinary story of Vivian Stanshall, lead singer of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, true British eccentric. Charismatic and flamboyant, Vivian Stanshall was a natural frontman for The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. The eccentric group who satirised trad jazz, pop and rock, reached Number five with ‘I’m...

The incredible, moving and hilarious story of Cheeta the Chimp, simian star of the big screen, on a behind-the-scenes romp through the golden years of Hollywood. As heard on Radio 4, starring Jon Malcovich and Julian Sands. The greatest Hollywood Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller, died in 1984. His coffin...

Wilde the writer is known to us from his plays and prose fiction, but apparently it was in his conversation that his genius reached its summit. His talk is lost and his autobiography was never written, but his letters reveal him at his spontaneous, sparkling best. Wilde the writer is known to us from...

This highly praised biography is the first to explore fully the way in which her painful early life and rejection by her brother Isaac in particular, shaped the insight and art which made her both Victorian England’s last great visionary and the first modern. An immensely readable biography of the...

Following the success of ‘You Look Awfully Like the Queen’, this is a second anthology of hilarious and touching royal anecdotes, collected by Thomas Blaikie. An unfortunate culture clash occurred when a Geordie councillor was invited to one of the Queen’s informal lunches. As is the old-fashioned...

For fans of the ‘Windsors’ and ‘Now we are Sixty’: a beautifully illustrated collection of amusing and affectionate stories from inside the royal family. Arriving at the theatre, the Queen and the Queen Mother appeared to be having words. ‘Who do you think you are?’ demanded the Queen...

I had a hunch we’d be champions! The most unlikely story in the history of sport, told by our greatest football writer On 25th March 2015, when King Richard III, recently rescued from a municipal car park, was reburied in Leicester Cathedral, his beloved football team had just lost 4-3 to Tottenham...