Hugh Thomson

Hugh Thompson has made a career exploring the mysterious pre-Columbian cultures of ancient Peru, providing unforgettable accounts of South America's most strange--but enduring--culture. Here, he takes us from the great Moche pyramids to remote sites in the central highlands that date back to the first millennium BCE--ancient Incan sites of the Andes that remain cloaked in mystery. He elegantly interweaves his account of the rise, decline, and fall...

1979. Adventure seeker Thomson is told by a stranger that there's money to be made by driving a car over the US border to sell on the black market in Central America. He embarks on an epic, liquor-fueled road trip. Thirty years on, he returns-- older but not necessarily wiser-- to complete his journey.

"Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers give the story an uncanny air, but one with a decidedly satirical twist. The story's unlikely heroine is Catherine Morland, a remarkably innocent seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger...

"'Pride and Prejudice' has delighted generations of readers with its unforgettable cast of characters, carefully choreographed plot, and a hugely entertaining view of the world and its absurdities. With the arrival of eligible young men in their neighbourhood, the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and their five daughters are turned inside out and upside down. Pride encounters prejudice, upward-mobility confronts social disdain, and quick-wittedness challenges...

At the age of ten, Fanny Price leaves the poverty of her Portsmouth home to be brought up among the family of her wealthy uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, in the chilly grandeur of Mansfield Park. She gradually falls in love with her cousin Edmund, but when the dazzling and sophisticated Crawfords arrive, and amateur theatricals unleash rivalry and sexual jealousy, Fanny has to fight to retain her independence. This new edition places Mansfield Park in...

200 miles south of the equator, Kilimanjaro has both equatorial and arctic conditions. Five distinct climatic zones inhabit the slopes of this 19,340-foot peak. Atop, a geologist takes viewers back to the dawn of time when the continent of Africa split.

Author Edith Nesbit has rewritten ten of Shakespeare's plays in narrative form, retaining much of the original language, and thus the flavor of the dramas. For each play the compiler selected images from great illustrators including Arthur Rackham, Louis Rhead, Charles Robinson, W. Heath Robinson, Hugh Thomson and Max Bihn.