These are the year's best, and darkest, tales of terror, showcasing the most outstanding new short stories by both contemporary masters of the macabre and exciting newcomers. As ever, this acclaimed anthology also offers a comprehensive overview of the year in horror, a necrology of recently deceased luminaries, and a list of indispensable addresses horror fans and writers. The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror remains the world's leading annual anthology dedicated solely to presenting the best in contemporary horror fiction.

In this the twenty-fifth edition of his celebrated annual Mammoth Book of Best New SF (its 29th as The Year's Best SF in the United States), award-winning editor Gardner Dozois presents most outstanding pieces of short science fiction from 2011, along with his typically informative notes on each author. Many are the work of award-winning writers, but there are also some surprising newcomers. The collection is prefaced, as ever, by Dozois' Summation of 2011 in SF, a review of the year's highlights in publishing and film — including non-fiction, media and awards — obituaries and an insightful look at emerging trends. It includes stories from bestselling writers: Damien Broderick, Paul McAuley, Ian R. MacLeod, Catherynne M. Valente, Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Michael Swanwick, Yoon Ha Lee and many more. Praise for previous editions: Quantity as well as quality... every piece is a treasure. For more than a quarter century, Gardner Dozois' Mammoth Book of Best New SF has defined the field. It is the most important anthology, not only annually, but overall. New authors rub shoulders with old hands, and strong work from relative novices Hannu Rajaniemi and Lavie Tidhar suggest that SF's future is as bright as ever.

Welcome to New York City, where the socialites are witches. Ever since fabulously wealthy Malcolm Doran walked into her life and swept her off her feet, Jane Boyle has been living a fairy-tale. When he proposes, Jane can't believe her incredible luck and decides to leave her Paris-based job as a fledgling architect and make a new start with Malcolm in New York. But when Malcolm introduces Jane to the esteemed Doran clan, one of Manhattan's most feared and revered families, Jane's fairy-tale takes a darker turn. Soon everything she thought she knew about the world — and herself — is upended. Now Jane must struggle with newfound magical abilities and the threat of those who will stop at nothing to get them. What if your mother-in-law turned out to be an evil, cold-blooded witch... literally?

When Inspector John Carlyle discovers a disorientated girl in a park near Buckingham Palace, he takes it upon himself to find out who she is and where she's from. His hunt for the identity of this lost girl takes him from Ukrainian gangsters in North London to the lower reaches of the British aristocracy. Soon, the inspector is on the trail of a child-trafficking ring that stretches from Kiev to London, and back to the palace itself...

'If you have a Wild, Unruly, or Undisciplined Daughter, two Ladies of Genteel Birth offer to Bring Out said Daughter and Refine what may have seemed Unrefinable. We can make the Best of the Worst'. When Amy and Effie Tribble, two charming but impoverished spinster sisters, lose out on an inheritance, they place this advertisement in The Morning Post and hire themselves out as professional chaperones. Vowing to prepare even the most difficult misses for marriage, the Tribble sisters will spend a London season on each client, educating them in their School for Manners. Miss Harriet Brown, daughter of a Methodist minister, is the embodiment of propriety and Christian charity — too much so, perhaps, for her own good. The virtues Harriet possesses are far from fashionable but the Tribble sisters feel confident their new charge will attract a worthy vicar or two before the end of the season — if first they can vanquish confirmed rake and gambler Lord Charles Marsham who seems perversely determined to woo Harriet.

Can you win an election and cover up murder at the same time? In the middle of a General Election, someone is targeting former members of the ultra-exclusive Merrion Club, youthful hedonists addicted to excess transformed into pillars of the political establishment. Next in the killer's sights is charismatic, ruthless Edgar Carlton, the man poised to be the next Prime Minister. But, with power almost in his grasp, Edgar will not stand idly by while his birthright is threatened. When Inspector John Carlyle finds a body in a luxury London hotel room he begins a journey through the murky world of the British ruling classes which leads all the way to the top. Operating in a world where right and wrong don't exist and the pursuit of power is everything, Carlyle has to find the killer before Carlton's people take the matter into their own hands.

How Great Britain was born — from the restoration to the Great Exhibition. In 1660 England emerged from the devastations of the Civil Wars and restored the king, Charles II, to the throne. Over the next 190 years Britain would establish itself as the leading nation in the world — the centre of burgeoning Empire, at the forefront of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. However, radical change also brought with it anxiety and violence. America is lost in the War of Independence and calls for revolution at home are never far from the surface of everyday life. In this scintillating overview of the era in which Britain changed the world, and how that nation was transformed as a result. William Gibson also looks at the impact of this transformation had upon the ordinary men and women.

This is a 'mosaic novel' set in the near-future, when a desperate and ever-more controlling UK government decides to restore a sense of national pride with a New Festival of Britain. However, controversial plans to build on the site of an old church in South London releases a centuries-old plague that turns its victims into flesh-hungry ghouls whose bite or scratch passes the contagion on to others. Even worse, the virus may also have a supernatural origin with the power to revive the dead. Despite the attempts of the police, the military and those in power to understand and contain the infection commonly referred to as 'The Death', it soon sweeps across London, transforming everyone who comes into contact with it. With the city — and the country — falling into chaos, even a drastic attempt at a 'Final Solution' to eradicate the outbreak at its source fails to prevent it from spreading to Europe and then quickly throughout the rest of the world. Soon there is no more news coming out of Britain... and it is up to those survivors in other countries to confront the flesh-eating invaders within their midst. Will humanity triumph over a world-wide zombie plague, or will the walking dead ultimately inherit the Earth? Told through various disparate and overlapping eye-witness accounts, through texts, e-mails, blogs, letters, diaries, transcripts, official reports and other forms of communication, a picture builds up of a world plunged into chaos — where the dead attack the living, and only one of them can be the ultimate victor. Written by some of the biggest and best-known names in horror and science fiction, these interconnected narratives create a unique vision of the End of the World brought about by a plague that may have its origins in both science and the occult.

Henry VIII changed the course of English life more completely than any monarch since the Conquest. In the portraits of Holbein, Henry Tudor stands proud as one of the most powerful figures in renaissance Europe. But is the portrait just a bluff? In his new book, Derek Wilson explores the myths behind the image of the Tudor Lion. He was the monarch that delivered the Reformation to England yet Luther called him 'A fool, a liar and a damnable rotten worm'. As a young man he gained a reputation as an intellectual and fair prince yet he ruled the nation like a tyrant. He treated his subjects as cruelly as he treated his wives. Based on a wealth of new material and a life time's knowledge of the subject Derek Wilson exposes a new portrait of a much misunderstood King.Praise for Derek Wilson's previous works: The Uncrowned Kings of England: 'Stimulating and authorative' — John Guy. 'Masterly. [Wilson] has a deep understanding of...characters, reaching out accross the centuries' — Sunday Times. Hans Holbein: Portrait of an Unknown Man: 'Fascinating' — Sarah Bradford, Daily Telegraph. 'Highly readable... The most accurate and vivid portrayal to date' — Alison Weir.

This title features over 30 landmark interviews, accounts, and memoirs of The Beatles and their entourage, recording how they inadvertently became counter-culture's figureheads and changed society. The pieces include Paul Johnson's The Menace of Beatlism, Maureen Cleave's Beatles Bigger than Christ feature, the News of the World feature suggesting The Beatles were spent forces — just before they unleashed Sergeant Pepper on the world — interviews with their entourage and main loves; plus latter-day contributions from the likes of Paul Gambacinni, Dave Marsh, Greil Marcus. Also included is a chronological tracing of each Beatles album and single, and analysis of all Beatles movie releases and television appearances.

Which fifty people made Britain the wreck she is? From ludicrous propagandist Alastair Campbell to the Luftwaffe's allies, the modernist architects, it's time to name the guilty. Quentin Letts sharpens his nib and stabs them where they deserve it, from TV gardener Alan Titchmarsh, the dumbed-down buffoon who put the 'h' in Aspidistra, to the perpetrators of the 'Credit Crunch'. Margaret Thatcher ruptured our national unity. The creators of EastEnders trashed our brand over high tea. Thus, he argues, are the people who made our country the ugly, scheming, cheating, beer-ridden bum of the Western world. Here are the fools and knaves and vulgarians who ripped down our British glories and imposed the tawdry and the trite. In a half century we have gone from end-of-Empire to descent-into-Hell.

From the death of Richard III on Bosworth Field in 1485 to the execution of Charles I, after the Civil Wars of 1642-48, England was transformed by two Dynasties. Firstly the Tudors, who won the crown on the battlefield and changed both the nature of kingship but also the nation itself. England became a Protestant nation and began to establishment itself as a trading power; facing down impossible odds it defeated its enemies on land and sea. Yet after a century Elizabeth I died with no heir and the crown was passed to the Stuarts, who were keen to remould the kingdom in their own image. In this book, leading Historian, Ronald Hutton brilliantly recreates the political landscape over this early modern period and shows how the modern nation was forged in these anxious, transformative years. Combining skilful pen portraits of the leading figures, culture, economics and accounts of everyday life, the book reveals insights in this key era in our nation's story.

The birth pangs of Nazism grew out of the death agony of the Kaiser's Germany. Defeat in World War I and a narrow escape from Communist revolution brought not peace but five chaotic years (1918-1923) of civil war, assassination, plots, putsches and murderous mayhem to Germany. The savage world of the trenches came home with the men who refused to admit defeat and 'who could not get the war out of their system'. It was an atmosphere in which civilised values withered, and violent extremism flourished. In this chronicle of the paramilitary Freikorps — the freebooting armies that crushed the Red revolution, then themselves attempted to take over by armed force — historian and biographer Nigel Jones draws on little-known archives in Germany and Britain to paint a portrait of a state torn between revolution and counter revolution. Astonishingly, this is the first in-depth study of the Freikorps to appear in English for 50 years. Yet the figures who flit through its shadowy world — men like Rohm, Goering and Hitler himself — were to become frighteningly familiar just ten years after the turmoil that gave Nazism its fatal chance.

Why it started, when, and what was the reality of 'The Crusades' are some of the questions this book aims to answer. Many people saw the Crusades as pilgrimages, many believed they were doing the will of God, and many more were there for the booty. This was an institution that for more than five centuries punctuated European history, troubled Christian consciences and embittered Muslim attitudes towards the West. Geoffrey Hindley takes us from the Middle East and Muslim Spain to the pagan Baltic when 'Crusaders' reclaimed or extended Europe'.

Developed from an early oral storytelling tradition dating back to the dawn of European culture, this is one of the oldest and most vibrant of Europe's mythologies. From all six Celtic cultures — Irish, Scots, Welsh, Cornish, Manx and Breton — Ellis has included popular myths and legends, as well as bringing to light exciting tales which have been lying in manuscript form, translated and unknown to the modern general reader.

For centuries, the Celts held sway in Europe. Even after their conquest by the Romans, their culture remained vigorous, ensuring that much of it endured to feed an endless fascination with Celtic history and myths, artwork and treasures. A foremost authority on the Celtic peoples and their culture, Peter Berresford Ellis presents an invigoration overview of their world. With his gift for making the scholarly accessible, he discusses the Celts' mysterious origins and early history and investigates their rich and complex society. His use of recently uncovered finds brings fascinating insights into Celtic kings and chieftains, architecture and arts, medicine and religions, myths and legends, making this essential reading for any search for Europe's ancient past.