No comments about The Eden-Eisenhower Correspondence, 1955-1957.

No comments about Winston Churchill - Biography of a Nobel Statesmen.

No comments about Histoire de la guerre de la péninsule sous Napoléon: Précédée d\'un tableau politique et militaire des puissances belligérantes par Général Foy: Publiés par Mme la Comtesse Foy. Tome 3.

No comments about The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill; Alone: 1932-1940.

No comments about Winston and Clemintine: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Churchills.

5 comments about Jane Austen: A Life.

1. I would tell a reader with an intensive interest in Jane Austen not to miss this. Nokes takes a contrarian view of some of the major incidents of JA's life, but his arguments are well supported and anyone with a serious interest in JA should at least ponder them. I wouldn't recommend this as a first-or-only biography of Jane Austen. If the reader is interested in a book of this length, I urge them to try John Halperin.
   
   Nokes does a masterful, almost unparalleled job of weaving together quotes from the papers of the Austens and various associates. He assures us that he never puts any words into anyone's mouth. He does, however, freely put thoughts into their heads, some of which are reasonable and some which have no known support. He also draws little verbal pictures to go along with these, reasonable, perhaps, but more suitable for fiction.
   
   Nokes also chooses to begin and end his biography with two imaginative "short stories." Interwoven into Chapter One, "Family Secrets" is a surprisingly long account of the Hancock family, Jane's aunt Philadelphia Austen and her husband Tysoe Saul Hancock, separated from his wife and daughter as he tries to rebuild his fortune in India. He ends with an almost entirely imagined account of Francis Cullum, paid caretaker of Thomas Leigh and George Austen. Since we know very little about Cullum or the health problems of Leigh and Austen, I find this highly judgemental piece absurd, especially in a work that purports to be nonfiction.
   
   I like that the book has the running title of the chapter on the left-hand page and the dates on the right. The Notes fortunately contain the chapter running title as well as the chapter number, so it is relatively easy to match up notes. The sources, except for manuscripts, are unfortunately scattered throughout the notes - it would be nice if at least major sources were gathered into a bibliography.



2. In her 1928 essay, "A Room of One's Own," Virginia Woolf laments as "deplorable" the absence of a history of British women prior to the eighteenth century. "...at what age," Woolf writes, "should she marry; how many children had she as a rule; what was her house like?...after all, we have lives enough of Jane Austen."

   What, though, was Jane Austen's life really like? What was Jane Austen really like? The 1970s, 1980s and 1990s have seen a veritable flowering of Austen biographies and studies (Marilyn Butler, Roger Sales, Jan Fergus, Tony Tanner, Claudia Johnson) that would no doubt have impressed even Virginia Woolf, by sheer number alone, if by nothing else.

   David Nokes's biography, Jane Austen: A Life differs from many of the others in its presentation of Austen, not as a staid moralist or a stoic spinster, but as a member of a manipulative and conniving family. To this end, Nokes focuses on the correspondence, not of Jane per se, but rather on that of the extended Austen family and especially Jane's cousin, Eliza de la Feuillide. The book, especially the first half, could just have easily been called Eliza de la Feuillide: The Fascinating Life of Jane Austen's Cousin.

   This extension is justified in that it does answer many questions about Austen's more adventurous and worldly siblings, relatives and friends. For example, Eliza Hancock de la Feuillide Austen was no doubt the natural daughter of a colonial administrator in India by the name of Warren Hastings. In her early twenties Eliza married a French nobleman, who sadly, was sent to the guillotine only a few years later. Eliza, herself, escaped France with her young son and lived as a glamorous demimodaine "Countess" in Regency London, her life only becoming staid and prosaic after her marriage to the much younger Henry Austen, Jane's older brother and Eliza's own first cousin.

   Nokes's "novelizes" this biography by paraphrasing the Austen family letters. It is an approach that does not always work, at times sounding quite artificial and contrived. In the book's opening sentences, for example, Nokes's writes: "Bengal, 1773: It is the rainy season in the Sunderbunds. Inside his lonely makeshift hut the Surgeon-Extraordinary sits writing a letter home to his wife in England. The livid orange sun is sinking over this dismal region of fetid salt-flats, swamp and jungle...It is three years since he last saw his wife, and he knows now that he will never see her again. Toil and disease have wasted his body and depressed his spirits."

   Much later, in recounting a scene between Jane Austen and her brother Frank, Nokes's writes: "The St. Helena islanders, said Frank, charged so much to passing ships for even the simplest supplies that a couple of acres of potatoes or a garden of cabbages there would provide a decent dowry for an daughter. Jane looked down into their beautiful Castle Square garden and thought of Edward Bridges. Would syringas do instead, she wondered?"

   Fortunately, Nokes's does focus on the important figures of Eliza, Henry and Cassandra Austen in Jane Austen's life and the role they played in shaping her unique Regency voice. Unfortunately, the "novelizing" of the Austen family letters grows extremely tiresome and quickly becomes a detriment to the overall quality of this book. There are a lot of Jane Austen biographies out there. Although it does have its redeeming qualities, this one was simply not my favorite.




3. I agree with the reviewer who was pleased to see a contrarian view of Jane Austen being presented. No one who was as sickeningly sweet as she is portrayed in other biographies (most notably the ones written by family members) could possibly have written the letters and books Austen wrote.

   I was inclined to like Nokes' book, but then read something rather disturbing. He states without hesitation that Mary was the youngest of the Bennet sisters in Pride and Prejudice. This is not true; Mary is the third of the five sisters. Maybe it's a nitpicky thing, but I then started to wonder if he got such a basic fact wrong, what else in this book is incorrect?




4. In all honesty, I could not bring myself to read this whole book, so if you prefer to ignore my opinion, I will quite understand. (I have only read 40-50 pages, but found it so depressing, I gave up!) Here is my review, for what it's worth!

   I was quite prepared to grant Mr. Nokes' premise that Jane Austen was not the sugary-sweet homebody that others have made her out to be, but I really do not think she or her family could really be as bad as he insists. I have, for instance, a hard time believing that Mr. Austen encouraged his daughter's writing solely on the mercenary view of augmenting the family's income. I am willing to give credence to Mr. Nokes' arguments of the Austen family's imperfections. I could forgive him a lot easier, however, if he didn't appear to gloat over their defects.




5. This is a good read, well-researched, well thought out and written. Mr. Nokes takes his reader through a fairly wonderful ride about Steventon and its environs. He gives a very clear picture of Jane Austen's family, especially in his interpretations of her relationships with her sister and brothers and cousin Eliza. Notwithstanding his research and his ability to capture and understand Jane Austen and her life, there are some surprising problems which occur later in his book. He does a nice job convincing the reader of Jane Austen's acerbic wit, her double entendres, her hidden messages, her colorful disdain and delights as revealed in her letters. Consequently it is all the more unsettling when Mr. Nokes, three-quarters into his book, does an abrupt about-face and takes a familiar passage from one of her letters at face value. I refer to the passage where she writes of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE as being "rather too sparkling...wants to be stretched out...with a long chapter...An Essay on Writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the history of Buonaparte". It is beyond anyone's credibility to imagine that the writer of NORTHANGER ABBEY would write these words with any intent but satire and mockery but Mr. Nokes, after having demonstrated how exceptionally mocking and satirical Jane Austen could be, decides to take her at face value and remarks, "suddenly...she felt as if there was nothing that she could not or dared not write". Perhaps he wants to distinguish himself from other biographers by a fresh appraisal of Jane Austen's self regard but I am not convinced that, upon publication of her early works, she suddenly felt a modern sense of stardom. Mr. Nokes seems to imply that SENSE AND SENSIBILITY and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, early drafts of which were written years before publication, were simply pulled out of her writer's desk, dusted off and updated so that the certain references would seem contemporary. I was fascinated that Mr. Nokes ends this biography by depicting Jane's brother George (essentially banished and forgotten by the Austen parents for being mentally handicapped) as an example of Jane's ultimate selfishness and callous nature. I doubt that enough is known of the circumstances for this conclusion to be just.

3 comments about My Just Desire: The Life of Bess Raleigh, Wife to Sir Walter.

1. I could not put this book down, enjoyed (almost) every minute of it. Some of the details were a little too much, but I loved learning something about running a household, women's rights (or lack of them)and the book is full of details about the many players of the times. I loved the book.



2. "My Just Desire," a superficial look at the life of an Elizabethan gentlewoman, leaves much to be desired. Peppering her writing with modern phraseology, such as "boy toy," author Anna Beer's diminishes both her subject and her readers' interest in it.
   
   Better that the fascinating life of Bess Throckmorton, wife to Sir Walter Ralegh, had been treated in a more reverant and scholarly manner. This is a choice subject poorly limned.



3. Anna Beer's biography of Bess Ralegh follows a current trend amongst English literary historians who are intent on re-examining the supporting cast of English Tudor and Stuart history. In the same vein as Weir, Gristwood and Somerset, she has produced an in depth look at a single aristocratic female set against a common backdrop, in this case, Elizabethan England.
   Opening with her own fictionalised account of Bess early morning as Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, we find our subject, Bess Throckmorton, five months pregnant which leads to a brief discourse on the sexual politics that pervaded much of Elizabethan politics. In chronological manner, Beer gives an early account of Bess life, of her Throckmorton relatives who constantly interfered in matters political meaning they often got send to Court, of her mother Anna and her presentation to the Court in 1584. Beer also weaves in an account of the major events of the time featuring Mary, Queen of Scots, Essex, Dudley et al before focusing on Bess' education which was "neither democratizing nor meritocratic". In parallel runs the biography of her future husband, Walter Ralegh and the sexual scandals that seem to have been rife at Court.
   (...)
   Beer, in a simple and entertaining style, has created a story of a woman who was, at first, infatuated with a charming adventurer, then married to one of the most powerful men in England, risking her Queen's fury, then a stoical and steadfast wife displaying brilliant political and legal acumen to keep the Ralegh and Throckmorton family afloat during years of political upheaval and royal dynastical change. Ever-loyal to her increasingly disillusioned husband and afterwards the consummate matriarch it lends credence to the statement that behind every great man there stands a greater woman.
   Well worth reading.

5 comments about The Queen & Di: The Untold Story.

1. 
   Seward should be ashamed of herself for this enormously biased gossip rag. It's quite easy to trash the Princess now... after all, the dead have a much more difficult time defending themselves.



2. This book is definitely biased in favor of the House of Windsor. It appears that the author thought it prudent to align herself with the powers that be rather than report an accurate historical account. There are too many contradictary sources to believe that this is an accurate portrayal of the relationship between the Queen and Princess Diana.



3. I find Ms. Seward's writing to be painful to read. For an editor of Majesty magazine, I expected her to have class in her manner of writing and respect in her depiction of the British royal family. She would have been well suited as a writer for the tabloids instead. Her manner of retelling is very gossipy, and biased. She can't seem to help but include her spiteful opinions of the late princess. I find her to be a very disrespectful person to be writing such a book. If you are looking for historical background or a respectful account of the Queen and the late princess, this is not the book to read.



4. If you are like half of the population and interested in all the gossip about the House of Windsor and the late Princess of Wales, then this book should be one that you should read. This book is about the relationship between Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Diana. This book, to my belief, is a piece of evidence on why we as the public should respect Her Majesty, and why we should understand what their relationship is truly about. The book describes Diana's first State duty with the entire Royal Family in November 1984 at the State Opening of Parliament. Diana was having her hair being done for the event and insisted that she wore her hair up knowing that it was not long enough and looked different. The next day Diana's hair was on the headlines not the Queen, on which should have been a day of her publicity. This was the beginning of the popularity contest between these two women.
   The author Ingrid Seward, is editor of Majesty magazine. She has written many books about the Royal Family that has kept her in the bestsellers list for twelve years.
   This book all and all will give you a better knowledge about both women and will teach you the inside story of what happened behind the palace walls of two remarkable women and there relationship that is so widely known and questioned by the public.



5. Thank you, Ms. Seward for writing a fair and reasonable book. It's gratifying to read a work that illuminates how hard our queen tried to accomodate the late Princess of Wales and what a truly lovely person she is. Elizabeth II is a great queen -- history will bear this out -- and I think we often take her far too much for granted. God bless and keep her!

   As a British subject currently residing the states, I remain astonished at the rabid interest our royal family holds for Americans.

No comments about Winston Churchill.

2 comments about John Soane: An Accidental Romantic.

1. 1st paperback edition, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1999, soft cover, 358 pages, 2.73 lbs, over 7¾" - 9¾" tall, lavishly illustrated biography filled with 219 illustrations: images, photographs, paintings in color and grayscale; index; bibliography & notes. It is not an architectural monograph, though the author "concentrates on putting the background to his buildings in focus".



2. This book is an outstanding introduction to the life & amazing works of John Soane.