JOHN MARQUIS
BOOKS and PRINTS
FLUSHING: A PEOPLE’S HISTORY is the story of the beautiful Cornish village where John Marquis lives with his wife, Joan. Focused on the families that fashioned the village’s fascinating past, this book tracks its development from the mid-17th century when Dutch engineers built the stone quays, through the packet ship era (1688-1855), and into modern times as a fishing community with strong agricultural links. Today a village of 700 people, Flushing is a popular tourist resort with a ferry link
BLOOD AND FIRE, the story of the 20th century’s most famous murder mystery, was acclaimed in the Wall Street Journal as one of the top five books in its genre. Former Harvard professor Edward Jay Epstein described it as a ‘superb reconstruction’ of a crime that rocked the world in the wartime summer of 1943. Sir Harry Oakes was the British Empire’s richest man when he was killed in bizarre circumstances in his Bahamas mansion. His playboy son-in-law was tried for his murder and acquitted.
PAPA DOC is the internationally acclaimed story of a spy trial in the voodoo land of Haiti during the brutal ‘reign’ of the tyrant Francois Duvalier. As a young political reporter in the Bahamas, John Marquis was sent to cover the three-week trial in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, in the late summer of 1968. During this assignment, he managed to secure an interview in the National Palace with Papa Doc himself, becoming one of the very few journalists to get access to the president.
A hard-hitting appraisal of the modern Bahamas by the former editor of the nation's leading daily newspaper. Author Jonathan Mantle described it as 'jaw-droppingly direct' and 'hideously funny'.
A revealing portrait of the killer Sante Kimes, whose con-and-kill spree across America in the 1990s made her one of the most notorious criminals of her time. The author met her at a New York women's prison in 2011, two years before she died in her cell.
MY VERY GOOD FRIEND BERT LAWRENCE is a highly personal appraisal of D.H.Lawrence, the greatest English writer of the twentieth century. Marquis’s lifelong interest in Lawrence began when he was sent, as a young reporter on the Nottingham morning paper, The Guardian Journal, to interview the author’s schoolfriends in his birthplace, the mining town of Eastwood. He was shocked by the hostility he encountered, and hoped his article would help restore Lawrence’s name among his own people.
HARD PRESSED is an amusing and self-deprecating memoir of an ‘old style newsman’ who entered journalism as a 17-year-old apprentice and worked for newspapers and magazines for half a century. During that time, John Marquis was an award-winning investigative reporter, an international boxing writer, the London Sports Editor of a major newspaper group, a West Country weekly editor, a magazine publisher and Managing Editor of the Bahamas’ premier daily newspaper.
New book off to brisk start
THE completely revised, hardback collectable edition of Flushing: A People's History is attracting favourable attention since it was launched in November, 2016.
Copies have already found their way to Europe and many parts of Britain as Cornish exiles savour its old photographs and colourful anecdotes.
With new text and many previously unpublished photographs and drawings, this handsome 384-page volume is limited to 300 signed and numbered copies, plus fifteen special presentation copies for those who helped with research.
The book is intended to be a collectors' piece for those whose families have close associations with Flushing, or the many people who have fallen in love with the village as a holiday centre.
It will also appeal to all lovers of Cornish history as it contains interesting insights into the maritime history of the Falmouth and Roseland areas.
One buyer said: 'It is a lovely book that will be treasured.'
Another added: 'It's the kind of book you can dip into time and time again and find something new.'
Yet another said: 'The detail is remarkable. Even those who've lived in Flushing all their lives will learn something from this book. At £35 a copy, it is underpriced - it should be £40 at least.'
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POLPERRO was once a smugglers' haven. Now it's a fishing village and tourist resort with a remarkable history and a cast of characters beyond belief in a village of its size. Not only was Zephaniah Job the smugglers' banker, issuing his own banknotes and running the village's economy, the local GP Jonathan Couch became a naturalist, artist and historian of international renown. During the 20th century, Polperro was home to two of Britain's best-known authors - the popular novelist Hugh Walpole and the children's writer Angela Brazil. Today, Polperro also boasts five pubs. 'It's a drinking village with a fishing problem,' a local joked. This 84-page book offers a word portrait of the beautiful Cornish port.