Books by Tom Quinn

George Orwell once said that the British love a really good murder. He might have added that the only thing the British love more than a good murder is a really good scandal, and best of all are the sexual and political scandals that take place behind the gilded doors of Britain's royal palaces. From Edward II's intimate relationship with Piers Gaveston to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's dramatic exit from the royal family, the royal residences have seen it all.This glorious romp of a book contains new information on well-known and not-so-well-known scandals, including those that have only recently been revealed through the release of previously secret official papers. Exploring surviving palaces such as Kensington as well as long vanished residences including Whitehall, Scandals of the Royal Palaces is the first in-depth look at the bad behaviour of not just the royals themselves but also palace officials, courtiers, household servants and hangers on.Delving into the bitter hatreds that generations of King Georges nursed for their eldest sons, Queen Victoria's opium fuelled rages and Edward VII's near-miss perjury conviction, royal expert Tom Quinn reveals that scandal and the royal family have always been bedfellows. And if the behaviour of today's royals is anything to go by, the glittering palaces will continue to house intriguing, embarrassing and outrageous scandals for centuries to come.

Kensington palace has been described as a royal menagerie, a hive of industrious freeloaders, an ant heap and even a lunatic asylum. Tom Quinn takes the reader behind the official version of palace history to discover intriguing, sometimes wild, often scandalous, but frequently heart-warming stories.

Test your London knowledge with this fascinating book, packed with fun and challenging quiz questions based around the weirdest events from the illustrious history of this wonderful city.

A quirky collection of true stories from the stranger side of the world's railways, featuring weird weather conditions, audacious robberies, hair-raising accidents, vanishing passengers, an infestation of maggots and a mysterious missing mummy.

More extraordinary but true tales from London's history, featuring a mysterious mummy housed in a City church, a TARDIS at Earl's Court, and why the mulberry tree in the gardens at Buckingham Palace isn't quite what it was supposed to be.

A quirky collection of stories from London's stranger side, featuring a tiny prison cell in Trafalgar Square, a train disguised as a ship, and a church that's completely the wrong way round.

During more than thirty years in a variety of houses, Bob Sharpe managed to rise from garden boy to valet and butler.As a boy he had to kill pheasant chicks, boil rabbits for the estate dogs, carry the wood up and down stairs every day for thirty fires and sleep on the floor outside his master's room. He cleaned shoes, ironed underwear and socks and once had to stand all night in the hall waiting for a late visitor to arrive.But as a butler he was the best paid servant in the house, waited on, feared and respected by the other servants.Bob Sharpe knew the real world of upstairs downstairs and the secrets of the landed gentry - even to the point of incest and attempted murder!

Praise for Lives of the Servants: Reading this fascinating book is likely to unleash almost anyone s Inner Bolshevik !' Daily Mail ...a fascinating portrait of the drudgery and servility of a domestic's life.' The Age ...captures the subtleties of the English class system to an extraordinary degree.' Midstate Observer'If the Brothers Grimm had ended Cinderella where she was being forced to clean the house by her stepsisters, they might have accidentally been writing Rose Plummer's biography. The maid's story makes for harsh, heartbreaking, fascinating reading. The Daily Telegraph, NZBorn in 1910, Rose Plummer grew up in an East End slum, where she and fought an unending battle with hunger and squalor.At the age of fifteen, Rose started work as a live-in maid, and despite the poverty of her childhood, nothing could have prepared her for the long hours, the backbreaking work and the harshness of a world in which servants were treated as if they were less than human. But however difficult life became, Rose found something to laugh about, and her remarkable spirit and gift for friendship shines through in her memories of a now-vanished world.