Six Wives of Henry VIII - Non Fiction Shelf
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 Tudors Fans Here is a page for you your favourite or not so favourite to review & recommend NON FICTION books about the Six Wives of Henry VIII For more on the authors see : Tudor Historians page | Want to add to this page? Click EasyEdit to update this page! (Don't see the EasyEdit button above? <a href="/#signin" target="_self">Sign in</a> or <a href="/accountnew" target="_self">Sign up</a>.)  |
 Non-fiction About the Author : David Starkey Presently, probably the highest paid British historian due to the fact that he works in both the literary media and Television. Has received the Norton Medlicott Medal for Services to History presented by Britain's Historical Association & awarded the CBE by Queen Elizabeth II. He is best known for writing and presenting the groundbreaking and hugely popular series Elizabeth and The Six Wives of Henry VIII. G.R. Elton was a mentor although it proved to be a stormy relationship. He has written over a dozen books on his speciality, Tudor & Stuart history. He is known for his balanced views of both Anne Boleyn & Katherine of Aragon rejecting the view that one was a sinner and the other was a "plaster of Paris" saint. Starkey's next book "Henry: Virtuous Prince" will be released in October 6, 2008 followed by a six part television documentary in 2009 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession. Review"Acute and imaginative. ... [Starkey's] communication of subtle points in simple and vivid language is masterly." (Sunday Telegraph )"Brilliant. ... Six Wives provides an intriguing new perspective on this key period in English history." (Daily Telegraph (London) ) "Exciting. ... Very acute. ... It is so gripping that one finishes it wishing it were even longer." (Mail on Sunday ) "Extraordinary. . . . With each queen, Starkey offers a vivid character study." (Sunday Times (London) ) |
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 Non-fiction About the Author : Antonia Fraser Popular biographer, historian, and mystery novelist. Lady Antonia Fraser is the daughter of the seventh Earl of Longford, Francis Pakenham, statesman, famed public crusader & writer. Her mother was the Countess of Longford, Elizabeth Pakenham, the author of a series of popular biographical studies of Queen Victoria, Wellington, Churchill, the Queen Mother, & Queen Elizabeth II. It was natural that Antonia should become a writer, coming from a family of writers, the "literary Longfords." As well as her father and mother, Lady Antonia's sister Rachel Billington was a novelist; another sister, Judith Kazantzis, was a feminist poet; a brother, Thomas Pakenham, was an historian; and her two eldest daughters, Rebecca and Flora, were both writers. In 1992, she published this book a year after Alison Weir's book of the same title, but academics felt that Fraser's work was more impartial. She is the widow of Harold Pinter, the 2005 Nobel Laureate of Literature and was made a Dame of the British Empire on 1st January 2011. Review: "There is a lengthy bibliography which includes all the major secondary sources on the reign and most of the printed primary ones as well. {Fraser} has even consulted some manuscripts....Assembling all of this into a book must have cost a lot of labour; it is certainly very laborious to read. Part of the trouble is the length...and the number of characters, on the one hand,and the absence of organizational devices, on the other....{Fraser} offers no coherent account of religious differences {and} has little sense of contemporary money values....But none of this need have mattered much if the story itself had been told well....{Fraser} rearranges words to rob them of all music, and events to deprive them of any impact. The result . . . succeeds, where almost all others have failed, in making the reign of Henry VIII boring." David Starkey, The Times Literary Supplement "Fraser here attempts to provide a fuller view of the six women who unenviably danced around the maypole that was the corpulent King of England. Fraser, the distinguished author of many historical studies, including The Weaker Vessel, portrays in fascinating detail the women who sought to be included in and were sometimes destroyed by the power structure of the times. Inevitably, more time is spent on Catherine of Aragon (after all, Catherine and Henry were married 24 years, whereas all five of his other marriages only totaled a little over ten years), and although Fraser claims to have tried to avoid any bias, she betrays a lingering sympathy for Henry's first queen. One cannot help but speculate, as the author does, what history would have been like if Catherine had provided Henry with a male heir. Not only were Henry's wives prisoners of their biology, but also Henry himself. Fraser's readable style, empathy for her subjects, and piquant use of historical details and anecdotes make this a satisfying addition to the history shelves." Katherine Gillen, Library Journal |
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 Non-Fiction About the Author: David Loades The marital ups and downs of England's most infamous king. The story of Henry VIII and his six wives has passed from history into legend - taught in the cradle as a cautionary tale and remembered in adulthood as an object lesson in the dangers of marrying into royalty. The true story behind the legend, however, remains obscure to most people, whose knowledge of the affair begins and ends with the aide memoire 'Divorced, executed, died, divorce, executed, survived'. David Loades masterly book recounts the whole sorry tale in detail from Henry's first marriage, to his brother's widow, to more or less contented old age in the care of the motherly Catherine Parr. 'Neither Starkey nor Weir has the assurance and command of Loades' SIMON HEFFER, LITERARY REVIEW 'David Loades is one of our finest Tudor historians. His insights are incisive and profound. I warmly recommend this book. ' - Alison Weir |
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 Non Fiction About the Author: Alison Weir Before becoming a writer of both historical fiction and non-fiction, Weir was a teacher & ran her own school for special needs children. She was born in Westminster, London and now lives in Surrey,England with her husband and two children. |
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 SynopsisThe women who wed Henry VIII are remembered mainly for the ways their royal marriages ended: divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. This book helps to restore full humanity to these six fascinating women by applying the insights of feminist scholarship. Here they appear not as stereotypes, not simply as victims, but as lively, intelligent noblewomen doing their best to survive in a treacherous court. Divorced, Beheaded, Survived takes a revisionist look at 16th-century English politics (domestic and otherwise), reinterpreting the historical record in perceptive new ways. For example, it shows Ann Boleyn not as a seductress, but as a sophisticate who for years politely suffered what we would now label royal sexual harassment. It presents evidence that the princess Anne of Cleves, whom Henry declared ugly and banished from his bed, was in fact a pretty woman who agreed to the king's whim as her best hope for happiness.BooknewsA fascinating, revisionist look at 16th century English politics (both public and private), examining the lives of Henry VIII's six wives as active personalities rather than merely as seductresses, unattractive hags, or ciphers. |
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