Unicorn Publishing Group

Oliver Cromwell remains one of English history’s most complex figures. He is often remembered for presiding over the execution of King Charles I and bringing centuries of monarchical rule to an abrupt end. However, far less attention is given to his role in shaping the principles of parliamentary government that followed. This book seeks to redress that balance. It presents Cromwell as a courageous military commander, a committed Puritan and a politician driven by his belief in fair and accountable representation. It has been meticulously researched by Lord Naseby who, drawing on his own experience of more than fifty years in Parliament, paints a vivid and sympathetic view of Cromwell. It reveals the contradictions of his character, the convictions that guided him and the legacy he left behind — a legacy that continues to influence the workings of Westminster and the democratic life of the United Kingdom today.

Forget polished playbooks and sanitized lessons. This is a business memoir and career journey rooted in lived experience, not theory. It's the raw, unfiltered story of a woman who began as a casino dealer and went on to sell her startup in one of the fastest exits in the industry. What if the greatest gambles are not on the cards, but on the life you dare to build? Karolina Pelc wasn't born into boardrooms. Her story started on the casino floor in post-communist Poland, launching a non-linear career that took her across countries and continents through the global gaming, entertainment, and technology industries — before she founded, scaled, and sold her disruptive startup to FanDuel, the number-one gaming brand in the U.S., in under three years. But Her Play: Make Your Own Luck is not a startup manual or a how-to guide. In this fiercely honest leadership memoir, Karolina plunges readers into the realities of career and chaos, power dynamics and personal pivots, bold decisions, and private reckonings that shaped an unconventional path. From gritty encounters and psychedelic insights to building a career while navigating profound personal challenges, she shares raw stories from high-pressure environments in a male-dominated industry. Before she built and exited her company, Karolina navigated a world of sustained pressure, uncertainty, and scrutiny. From casino floors where every decision was visible to the complex dynamics of international business, gaming, and technology, her career unfolded far from predictable paths. Alongside the visible hustle ran the private battles: doubt after public setbacks, heartbreak behind closed doors, ambition, and the audacity required to keep moving forward when outcomes were anything but guaranteed. As this business memoir and career journey unfolds, Karolina reflects on inherited beliefs, broken assumptions, and the risks she took before knowing whether they would cost her everything. From sailing the globe on cruise ships to taking early leaps into the emerging world of online gaming and tech, Her Play lays bare the experiences that forged her leadership mindset. More than a chronicle of professional milestones, Her Play explores the internal mechanics of risk, confidence, and decision-making under pressure. Drawing on Karolina Pelc's original mindset framework, the book offers a reflective lens on how setbacks can be reframed and how opportunities are often created long before they appear. It is an inspirational leadership memoir about learning to trust your instincts, rewrite the rules on your own terms, and practise the art of engineered serendipity — making your own luck, one bold decision at a time. This book is for readers who:? Are building ambitious careers without a clear or linear map — and feeling the cost of it? Have taken risks that came without guarantees, applause, or safety nets? Are navigating leadership, identity, and pressure at the same time, often in silence? Want insight, not instruction — and lived experience, not templates

In the summer of 1961, Stanley Johnson, accompanied by Tim Severin and Michael de Larrabeiti, set out from Oxford on two BSA 500cc Shooting Star motorcycles to follow Marco Polo’s route from Venice to Beijing. Although they came tantalizingly close to the Chinese frontier, they were forced to divert to India. With one motorcycle out of action, the three of them rode the remaining machine down the Grand Truck Road from Kabul to Calcutta. In 2023, Stanley set off again with his fourth son, Max, to finish the journey he had started sixty-two years earlier. With a brilliant camera-crew in tow, they followed Marco Polo's precise route across China, all the way to the Summer Palace of Kubla Khan in Xanadu and on to Beijing itself. This book tells the tale of an extraordinary dream come true.

Signing up for a lifetime in India was a sacrifice, no less for the men than for the women they married. What made that sacrifice worthwhile for the young Richard Temple were qualities now seen as old-fashioned: a belief in God and a sense of purpose, inculcated by the East India College, Haileybury. Convinced it was his duty to do good, he set out to work on behalf of the Company, India and the Indians, all too soon made aware by the tumults of 1857 that the land to which he had committed his life was changing forever. One of the most articulate and energetic men of his generation, he would later, as Sir Richard Temple, serve as Finance Minister, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal and Governor of Bombay. Accompany him through the demanding formative years and his tragically brief marriage, until, aged only thirty-six, he was entrusted with sole control of a whole region to govern.

Follow Julian Lisiecki’s early 20th century life as he struggles for an education in Russian-controlled Poland. Julian’s story offers a rare glimpse into life during the First World War, being lost behind enemy lines during the Polish Soviet War and becoming a successful architect. The saga continues with Julian’s son, Stach, whose gripping Second World War experiences take him from fighting the Germans in France to wishing RAF bombers would liven up their ‘damned potato soup’ on Christmas Eve while shivering in Stalag VII-A. His remarkable escape across the Iberian Peninsula to become an officer in the British Army in West Africa, followed by his war against the 55th Imperial Japanese Cavalry in Burma, is a tale of resilience, courage, and lifelong friendship.

A Forest Farm is the culmination of years of diligent research, recording the dynamic history of Tickeridge Farm in the hamlet of Kingscote, East Grinstead in Sussex. The book is a comprehensive study of the farm’s development from Neolithic times to the present day. Kim Bayne travelled all over the country to discover and bring to life the stories of its owners, tenants and workers, to produce a work which covers not only the changes and challenges encountered on the farm, but also those which affected the people who contributed to its history.

Tracks: A Journey Into Metroland tells the story of Metroland and the development of suburbia that grew alongside the Metropolitan Railway. Originally the brainchild of eminent Victorians, the Metropolitan grew to become the queen of underground lines, eventually expanding to a point some fifty miles outside London. Author Kevin J. Last describes how the concept of Metroland was an aspiration for several levels of society, promising a better lifestyle well away from the deprivations of wartime. The idea that the working man could live comfortably outside the smoke in individually designed houses would mean that he could also thrive at work, largely due to the regular service offered by the new railway. This was quite exceptional in that, while nominally an underground line, most of the Met''s route was above ground and, in length, went far beyond other similar lines, far out into the Buckinghamshire countryside. Not marked on any map, Metroland is as much a concept of the mind as a real place.

Michael’s charismatic and highly successful wife Maggie showed the first signs of dementia in her mid-fifties. His experience of caring for her is quite exceptional: he lived with her in a care home for nine years, overseeing every aspect of her care and medical treatment. Michael chose to do this as an act of love, not wanting to be separated from his wife nor to leave her alone. But the result was that a highly experienced business consultant lived inside the care system for nine years, observing, guiding and negotiating care and medical treatment on Maggie’s behalf, and is now able to share that story. In the experience of care professionals, this is unique. The lessons he learnt are so important that he has been urged by senior figures in the care sector to share his experience for the benefit of others and to promote much needed changes in the current care system.

Life’s Lessons Well Learned covers Martyn Bould’s 60 years in the Cayman Islands as he helped it develop ‘the islands time forgot’ with a population of 10,000 into a thriving financial centre with a population of 80,000 from 130 different countries. He was the youngest developer of town houses as well as developing the Great House luxury condominium on Seven Mile Beach, introduced innovations from squash to cable TV. Life is of course a journey and not a destination, and Martyn Bould’s autobiography includes many lessons from the ups and downs of life’s twists of fate. The author’s journeys include visiting 120 countries with his wife Vivian, meeting fascinating people along the way and climbing many figurative and literal mountains, including Kilimanjaro and Aconcagua in his 70s. He describes in detail his journey through life’s successes and challenges, closely coupled with his cultural development journey of the talented Cayman society.

This is the incredible story of why and how Winston Churchill in his mid-50s decided to write an autobiography designed to reshape his image and to reduce an overwhelming personal debt burden. The book, My Early Life, emerged from a truly Churchillian writing process that was both complicated and highly focused. An extensive dictation process using both external research and his own previously written materials created a rough draft. Then additional researchers, reviewers and publishers on two continents helped mold the final product. My Early Life is Churchill’s Aeneid and many sections approach lyric poetry in the style of writing and in its visual and emotional impact. How all this came about is described and analyzed in this book. It further explores just how successful an endeavor this was and the global impact this book has had on literature and as a source for educational and literary publications.

After The Dance delves into the intriguing life of South African artist Le Roux Smith Le Roux (1914–1963), a brilliant yet obsessive outsider who was appointed Deputy Keeper of the Tate Gallery in 1950 at the age of thirty-six. Renowned for his sharp intelligence and methodical approach, Le Roux boldly questions the price paid by Director Sir John Rothenstein for the Degas sculpture, Li le Dancer, Aged Fourteen.While Le Roux excels in his professional life, his personal relationships are chaotic. The biography unveils the complexities of a talented man whose life was tumultuous as it was remarkable.The narrative describes the Great Tate Affair (1952–1954), offering a fresh perspective that challenges the accepted narrative shaped by Rothenstein’s flawed account. Through meticulous research and compelling storytelling, this book invites readers to reconsider one of art history’s most controversial episodes.

Writers and poets, academics and art critics, mathematicians and experimental scientists, churchmen and politicians, women of strong opinions gather for a summer weekend in the 1870s.Is it real, or is it a fantas? ne thing’s sure: their debates – about life’s aims, rural and urban living, love and money, civilization and belief, the social framework, the past, the present and the future take us to the heart of the Victorian dream and its reality: the idea that their society exemplified ‘Progress’.What did ‘Progress’ mean? Were things (and which things) getting better? What did ‘better’ mean? And for who? he history of the world before the Victorians, from Aberdeen to Africa, showed a particular form of equality for almost everyone: an equality of poverty and no prospects, with kindness often in short supply. Victorians wanted to change that world, thought they were changing it, did change it. They did it in a human way: a melange of muddle, vision, certainty, doubt, too slow for many, too fast for some. Yet their changes were decisive both for creating the modern world, but also for revealing the dilemmas attached to mass living in urban, technological societies, as well as the moral flaws in imposing one civilization’s or one person’s beliefs on another. Most remarkably of all, the upheaval in making major transitions in every area of life, which produced revolutions and violence across Europe, in the Americas and in Asia, was carried out – at least in Britain itself – almost entirely peacefully.The past will always be a foreign country for those unwilling to engage with its people. Whether viewing the lives of rulers or the ruled, ''Being Victorian'' corrects innumerable preconceptions.

A critical first-hand appraisal of the activities, achievements, and importance of the Jewish Brigade by IDF Major-General Shlomo Shamir (Rabinowicz), its Covert Internal Commander on behalf of the Haganah and the Jewish national institutions in Palestine. Some myths surrounding the Brigade’s activities are also dealt with in this appraisal. The Jewish Brigade, a unit of the British Army during WW2, played a crucial role on behalf of world Jewry in the fight against Nazi Germany. Comprised mainly of Jewish volunteers from Palestine, the Brigade was formed in 1944 after four years of struggle for deployment as a fighting force. The Brigade participated in the Italian campaign, distinguishing itself in the battles along the Senio River and proving that Jewish soldiers could fight as a unified force against a well-trained enemy and prevail. Beyond combat and under Shamir’s guidance, the Brigade was the first to search for, meet, and care for survivors of the Holocaust. Despite British disapproval, its members worked at numerous Displaced Persons camps in Germany, particularly at Bergen-Belsen, and facilitated the illegal journeys of many survivors to Palestine. The story of the Brigade therefore, exemplified a dedicated pursuit of both military goals and Jewish national aspirations. With many Brigade members subsequently becoming leading figures in the fledgling Israel Defence Forces (IDF), the book shines a light on how the experience of these Jewish volunteers in the British Army was irreplaceable in shaping both the military and political landscape of the nascent State of Israel.

From radical roots in the Sixties, outdoor arts have grown to become an essential part of nation-defining celebrations. At the forefront of the sector is Greenwich+Docklands International Festival, which has been lighting up lives and filling historic squares, town centres and unused spaces with spectacular large and small scale productions for 30 years. Founder Bradley Hemmings has followed his vision to raise the ambition, quality and diversity of work produced in the UK while also welcoming the best international companies. Above and Beyond tells the story in words and pictures of why GDIF is London’s leading outdoor free arts festival.

Jacqueline Duncan founded the Inchbald School of Interior Design in 1960, and the Inchbald School of Garden Design in 1972. War-time experiences as a young evacuee living in grand English country houses kindled her fascination with buildings and gardens before she met and married Michael Inchbald, a leading interior decorator. Britain had no equivalent of the Parsons School of Design in the USA, so Jacqueline Duncan became determined to establish a school in London. An important component of Inchbald courses is interior design history, which Jacqueline Duncan outlines, explaining how the profession developed out of associated trades and gift ed amateurism. Many distinguished interior designers and garden designers are Inchbald graduates. Examples of their work are included in an appendix.

Written by John Buxton and Don Heath, two experienced rail professionals, Lines of Power delivers a comprehensive record of the stuttering progress of electrification and modernisation of Britain’s railway network, exposing the furtive manoeuvring by competing factions within the railway industry during the 1950s.The book is highly critical of the excessive scepticism of the Department of Transport (DoT later DfT) and the frequent disproportionate, and often imprudent, interventions by politicians that have collectively thwarted the opportunity to progress a more comprehensive and cost effective ‘rolling programme’ of electrification.