No comments about Boudica Britannia.

2 comments about Elizabeth I (Life and Times Series).

1. There is so much to learn about Elizabeth the 1st. In The Life and Times of Elizabeth the 1st, by Neville Williams an abundant amount of information is given about Elizabeth's life before and during her reign as Queen of England. Before Elizabeth became Queen she suffered through a rough childhood without a mother, being called horrible names by people and being imprisoned by her own sister. During her reign as Queen, Elizabeth had to deal with life in court, religious matters and being courted often by suitors, yet choosing to rule on her own. This book also has many illustrations, which helps you in your understanding of the book.
   
   I felt this book had a lot of useful information about Queen Elizabeth's life. I also found it a very intriguing read. This book relates to the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. In To Kill A Mockingbird Atticus shows courage. He shows courage when he took Tom Robinsons case and tried to save him even though he knew in doing so he knew it could possibly hurt him and his family. Like Atticus Elizabeth also showed courage. She showed courage when she chose to rule England on her own even though she was being pressured to marry. There is so much to learn about this incredible monarch and what she went through throughout her life. I would recommend this book for ages 12 and up.



2. Elizabeth is the subject of scores of biographies and this isn't one of the better ones. Williams' writing style is OK, but not deeply engaging, and he glosses over some of the most interesting periods in Elizabeth's life. The book is well-illustrated and is a decent introductory biography of Elizabeth, but it lacks the depth and insight any biography of this amazing woman should offer.

1 comments about The Duleep Singhs: The Photograph Album of Queen Victoria's Maharajah.

1. This vendor never delivered the book or ever contacted me after 3 e mails. I would never buy anything from them at lest they could have responded to enquiry.

2 comments about Sarah Churchill: Duchess of Marlborough: The Queen's Favourite.

1. A fair bit of the text in this book went towards explaining why Sarah Churchill has been undervalued or unfairly treated in previous biographies. In certain sections this is helpful, in others it is very distracting. In some ways, I wish this biographer could have been a bit more objective about her subject; she made it seem as though Sarah's missteps in politics were completely out of her control, when in fact a healthy dose of tact and respect for other people's feelings (without betraying her own convictions, just with respect for others) might have won her more success in her endeavors. That said, for Sarah Jennings to rise from impoverished gentility to a wealthy and powerful duchess (not to mention founding a well-known and lasting dynasty) is not merely remarkable, but almost incredible.
   
   Overall, the biography was very good, although I wish it would have had a family tree showing how the Marlborough family grew, who all the granchildren were and when they were born (not to mention which of Sarah's daughters were their mothers) and even possibly a chronology, as the scope of Sarah's life and the breadth of her story made it sometimes difficult to put certain events into context.



2. Sarah Churchill, 1st Duchess of Marlborough gained notoriety through three things:

   1. She was a lady-in-waiting/best friend to Queen Anne of England. She took this position of power for granted, treating the Queen much like a dumb child. She felt it was her right to instruct the Queen on appropriate political decisions and appointments at court. When Sarah became too pushy and arrogant, the Queen severed the friendship, leading to a very public fall from favour.

   2. She was married to the military man John Churchill, who defeated Louis XIV's French army in the early 1700s (A big thing at the time - remember England and France were arch enemies). This victory led Queen Anne to give John and Sarah titles (Duke and Duchess of Marlborough) and a huge government grant to build a massive palace with - Blenheim, which still stands today outside of Oxford UK.

   3. Her direct descendents include Winston Churchill and Diana, Princess of Wales.

   Ophelia Field has written a biography which covers all these events, and also tells us objectively about the woman herself. She does not attempt to paint a rosy picture of Sarah, who could be stubborn and domineering. At the same time, she explains WHY Sarah did certain things (based on letters she wrote to family and friends - many excerpts included), and why her political views were as they were. Crucially, she discusses how Sarah's support of the Whig party, her deep rooted belief in their righteousness, developed into a fanatacism which led to her fall from the Queen's favour and high society. Queen Anne is also brought to life as a woman all her own, though her reign was short.

   This biography was informative, educational (about the political and aristocratic climate of the time 1680s-1720s), and fascinating. It portrayed a modern woman ahead of her time. I feel if I had met Sarah Churchill, I may not have liked her (she polarised people - you either loved or hated her), but I certainly would have respected and admired her.

4 comments about The Apprentice Mage, 1865-1914 (W.B. Yeats: A Life, Vol. 1).

1. William Butler Yeats offers a life of contradictions. Born in Dublin to a middle-class Protestant family, Yeats went on to become one of the premier poets of the twentieth century. As a writer and member of the Irish literary community, he also helped to forge Irish national identity through his words and his deeds. In this biography, the first of two volumes, Roy Foster offers an account of Yeats' development into one of the leading figures of the Irish literary scene.
   
   This is not an easy book. Foster recounts Yeats' life in what is sometimes excruciating detail, covering every movement and literary battle the poet undertakes. Moreover, as he does so he assumes the reader's familiarity with both the background of late nineteenth century Ireland and the members of the Irish literary community. People appear in his narrative with little introduction, creating a confusing jumble of names that limits the appreciation of their role in Yeats' life.
   
   Such problems aside, this is a first-rate biography. Foster does a great job examining Yeats' life, in a text that while long is never dense. His coverage of Yeats' occult interests is particularly good, as is that of the poet's involvement in nationalist causes - both integral aspects of his poetry. Foster's argument that Yeats' involvement in the mystical was a reaction to the declining position of Protestants in Ireland, an effort to cope with the sense of dislocation by asserting psychic control, is a compelling one that helps to fit more of his poetry into its contemporary context. Foster helps this process; while he asserts that his biography is about what Yeats did rather than what the poet wrote he does offer a perceptive commentary on aspects of Yeats' work, which helps us better appreciate the connection between the man and his writings. Thanks to this, we have a book that is essential for understanding such a complicated literary figure and the role he played in his times.



2. For the first 100 pages or so, this book had me completely. Roy Foster writes with elegant brio and has a historian's eye for the wider events and contexts that shaped Yeats's early years. Where previous biographers like Ellman take a sort of lighthouse approach to their subject, treating the passions and conflicts of Yeats's day as fuel for the poetry that was destined to outshine them, Foster is more like an anteater, eagerly snuffling up the everyday bits of information that give the flavor of Yeats's multifaceted life as he actually lived it, before his later fame and incessant revisions smoothed it into a pattern.

   After a while though, the book tends to bury Yeats in a mass of trivia that include everything from the menu at one of his literary dinners to the prices he charged for his lectures. This level of detail could be enlightening if Foster stopped for breath more often to tell us why these things are important. Too often though he keeps his head firmly down with the ants, cataloging the day-to-day intrigues of a very complicated life without linking them to any kind of larger interpretation of Yeats's personality or development. Instead, Foster spends his 500+ pages introducing new names at the rate of one or so per page, most of them disappearing by the end of the chapter never to be heard from again. We get the intrigues of various Irish nationalist factions, potted bios of minor figures on the Dublin and London art scenes, humorous sketches of Yeats's fellow-travellers in his sundry mystical societies. It was hard to see Yeats after a while with all these minor figures crowding the stage.

   If Foster does have an interpretation of his own, as far as I can tell it's a revisionist one. Where Ellman or Jeffaries saw Yeats's life as a drama of painful self-creation, Foster sends to see an ambitious man on the make, an aggressive networker who wasn't beyond bending the truth if it helped his own advancement. Even his life-long passion for Maud Gonne, one of the key sources of his poetry, was, according to Foster, in part a self-conscious realization that a great poet needed a great passion to write about. In trying to bring Yeats back down to earth, I think Foster overcompensates by making him more canny and worldly than the sexual naivete, table rapping, faery talk and aesthetic posturing of these years suggest. Worst of all, Foster shows almost no interest in Yeats's poetry, the reason we're reading the biography in the first place. I put down the book admiring Foster's energy and mastery of such a huge anthill of facts, but I couldn't shake the feeling that a lot less would have told us a lot more.




3. This is loaded with surprise after surprise. Foster's insights into the poetry, through historical and social readings, are often revelatory. My only complaint is that many of the tales he tells tend to have the same emotional architecture due to a descirptive repetition: this makes it a little monotonous at times. But this is a quibble. This book is great. When is Vol. 2 going to be published?



4. R.F. Foster's two-volume biography (second volume to come in 2000) is a model of articulate and knowledgable scholarship, arguably comparable to the great biographies of Joyce and Wilde written by Richard Ellman. Foster's work leaves nothing to be desired. It easily excels previous Yeats biographies written by Cootes, Jeffares, etc.

5 comments about Lord Minimus: The Extraordinary Life of Britain's Smallest Man.

1. I am in the midst of reading this book and have not been able to put it down, except when absolutely necessary! This author has a wonderful style of writing that makes this wonderfully rich period in history come to life. It is not dry and dull, it is exciting and full of well presented information. I highly recommend for anyone who wants to learn about life at Court with the King and his young bride, Henrietta Maria. Not only does it give us a glimpse at the life of this extraordinary man, but also at the world around him. 5 stars!



2. The fact that Jeffery Hudson is a secondary character in his own story is rather disappointing although it is understandable considering the lack of information or documentation on Hudson.

   Most of the writing the author did do on the "Queen's Dwarf" is inferential at best.




3. This is an extraordinary book. Ostensibly a biography of Jeffrey Hudson, "Britain's Smallest Man," this fascinating work contains hidden depths. Along the way, we get mini-biographies (pun intended) of Charles I, Charles's wife Henrietta Maria, Charles II, and the artist Anthony Van Dyck. We also learn quite a bit about the English Civil War and the Barbary pirates. Even though the book is only 234 pages long, not counting appendices, and even though Mr. Page is providing so much other material, we never feel as though the author is getting sidetracked. "Lord Minimus" remains the center of attention and, considering the paucity of historical data available to the author, we come to know Jeffrey (his actions, thoughts, and feelings) probably as well as is possible. The book is filled with memorable scenes: Charles I, after asking his 11 year old son why he has been crying, receives the following reply- "My grandfather left you four kingdoms, and I am afraid your Majesty will leave me never one."; Charles I asking "The English Methuselah," Thomas Parr (purportedly 151 years old at the time) how he got to live so long received the reply that the old fellow was "doing penance" for having fathered a child out of wedlock when Parr was over 100 years old. (Parr's actual remark was a bit cruder than what I can write in this review. Charles didn't appreciate the wisecrack, by the way, as he was a bit on the puritanical side. Pretty ironic, actually, considering what happened to Charles under the "Roundheads.") I don't want to give too much away, but suffice it to say that Jeffrey led a full life- which included a duel and a 25 year stint as a slave in North Africa (courtesy of the aforementioned Barbary pirates). Oh, I forgot to mention one other area Mr. Page goes into some detail about: the world of 17th century theater. We go behind the scenes with Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones, and learn about some bizarre "tricks of the trade," such as hiring people to shout "Fire!" so the audience will be distracted and not notice scene changes being made! As the author writes, "It was a great idea with only one tiny flaw: there were panics and the whole theater emptied in the stampede for safety." With a minimum of fuss, we are given a maximum amount of very interesting material. Great book!



4. While the story of Geoffrey Hudson, Lord Minimum, is an interesting one and worth reading, the author really succeeds in making Hudson's entire world real and accessible to the reader. I love it when a good book generates an interest in me to learn more about the subject and times, and I'm now interested in reading more about the court of Henrietta and Charles I and his trial and subsequent execution. Nick Page occasionally is a little tedious with his constant foreshadowing of upcoming events, but it was easy to forgive him this because his writing is easy and engaging.



5. In 1626, the Duke of Buckingham gave a party for King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria. The dinner was sumptuous, and the entertainment magnificent. But, Buckingham had an ace up his sleeve. When the ornate pie was set before the queen, out popped a most amazing sight, a seven-year-old boy; he was dressed in a marvelous suit of armor and stood eighteen inches tall! His name was Jeffrey Hudson.

   Jeffrey was born in 1619 to a large, ill-educated butcher, but fate (and the Duke of Buckingham) raised him up to be the constant companion of the Queen of England, even though fate also raised him up to be no more than 30 inches tall at the age of twenty! He loved the queen and stood by her through thick and thin (and it got very thick and thin for Henrietta Maria and her husband), and had more experiences in his life than most people can even imagine.

   Throughout this book, author Nick Page spins a marvelous true story, telling of Jeffrey's experiences and the great happenings that were going on in his world. I found Jeffrey's story to be touching - sometimes heartwarming and sometimes heartbreaking. I also enjoyed the history that the author wove into the narrative, making the era come more alive for me than it ever has before.

   I have two very small complaints against this book. First, the author references three paintings of Jeffrey, but they are not reproduced in color within the book (one is in color on the dust jacket, while another is poorly reproduced in black-and-white). The second one is that I found that the author's periodic references to future events disturbed the flow of the narrative, and somewhat broke the feeling of being transported to another place and time.

   However, outside of those two niggling complaints, I found this to be an absolutely outstanding book. Lord Minimus is an excellent biography, and an excellent portrait of an era. I highly recommend it to everyone!

No comments about Thoughts and Adventures.

1 comments about Lilla's Feast.

1. Lilla's Feast" describes a time not so very long ago that seems impossibly distant. The world-wide expansion of European colonialism in the 19th century caused thousands of people, especially British, to seek their fortunes in the colonies and the trading emporiums in the exotic East, especially India and China. Lilla, the great-grandmother of the author was one of them. She was born in Chefoo, China in 1882 and spent most of her life in China or India.
   
   Lilla never did anything of great importance, but she stands for all the Brits born and raised abroad who felt a bit foreign when they returned "home" to England on visits. During the course of her 100-year life Lilla was present during the peak of Western power and prestige in the Orient before 1900 and its rapid decline thereafter culminating in World War II in which Lilla and her family ended up in a Japanese concentration camp.
   
   We follow Lilla through marriages, births,deaths, family troubles in India and China, the hardships of Weihsien internee camp in China during World War II, and finally back to an uneasy old age in England -- the money, power, and prestige of life as a privileged Westener in China now gone. It's a good story to be read about a class of people who saw their pleasant lives and lucrative livelihoods destroyed by war and politics. We don't feel all that sorry for Lilla, nor even that fond of her, but we are interested in her experiences. Along the way we get some fascinating pictures of the life of Brits in China -- and especially the hardships of Weihsien, a concentration camp that has catalyzed a sizeable body of literature. See "The Call" by John Hersey, a novel about a missionary who is interned in Weihsien and "Shantung Compound" by Lawrence Gilkey, a sociological classic about people under the stress of imprisonment.
   
   Smallchief

1 comments about Alice Keppel & Agnes Keyser: Edward VII's Last Loves.

1. This is a good biographical overview of Mrs. Keppel. I found the information in the book about Agnes Keyser to be skimpy and somewhat lacking in clarity. The info on Mrs. Keyser is placed in this book almost as an afterthought, to give the book a new angle. If you are looking for general information on Edward and Mrs. Keppel this is the book for you. If you want an in depth biography, use another source. An ok read if you want to kill a couple of afternoons.

3 comments about Cochrane: Britannia's Sea Wolf.

1. This book is remarkable historical background for anyone who enjoys the Jack Aubrey, Lord Ramage, Horatio Hornblower sets of historic fiction.
   The biographer details many of the challenges met by those fictional characters, including the pervasive corruption of the British admiralty system, which fictional heroes endure and which Thomas Cochrance fought against his entire life.
   Donald Serrell Thomas highlights a few of the many ship-to-ship actions from 1793-1808. But he spends as much time investigating the politics of the pre-reform parliamentary system where a few powerful purses controlled the representation from numerous "rotten boroughs" -- one of which elected Cochrane.
   The author also outlines the details of a remarkably modern-sounding stock market fraud case, in which Cochrane was found to be a co-conspirator. The author thinks (as most of Britain came to think) that Cochrane was innocent, although another recent study came to an opposite conclusion based on the same evidence.
   If you're a fan of the "Sharpe's Rifles" series, read "Sharpe's Devil" before you read this book. But read both!



2. As the blurb on the back cover says: forget Horatio Hornblower, forget Jack Aubrey. Even the license given to them as fictional characters can't surpass the facts of Lord Cochrane's extraordinary life. A supremely creative tactician and breathtaking improviser at sea (it was no less a person than Napoleon who nicknamed him the 'Sea Wolf') his story ashore is worthy of a book in itself.

   This book has it all: blood, guts and glory pitted against both the enemy abroad and the corrupt establishment at home. Once read, there's no forgetting this man and his story.




3. This book was first published in 1978 but has now been re-released to the benefit of all who enjoy a fast-paced historical account. After reading this book I am amazed that it has taken nearly twenty years to be re-released. What a great story Mr. Thomas tells of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, later the 10th Earl of Dundonald. From his birth through to his death covering all his exploits in numerous sea battles and actions, so many in fact that you find it hard to believe that he survived.

   The book covers Cochrane's battles during the Napoleonic Wars during which, on many occasions, he sent his ship in action against overwhelming odds. It was during this period that he was recognized, as one of Britain's most daring and successful captains. It was also during this period that he made many enemies, although he pressed hard in every action and took many risks, he always considered the well being of the men under his command. This later led to his single-handed campaign against corruption in the Admiralty.

   Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 Cochrane commenced an extraordinary career as a mercenary admiral. He subsequently commanded the navies of Chile and Brazil and launched campaigns against their protagonists, Spain and Portugal. After finishing his 'little wars' in South America he took command of elements of the Greek navy in their war against the Turks. In all these campaigns Cochrane again showed that he was one of the best naval commanders of his time.

   The narrative flowed along smoothly and although I have no great knowledge of maritime history I had no problems in following this story. In over 350 pages of text along with a number of black & white plates and a few maps Mr. Thomas tells a wonderful and exciting story. This is the type of book, which I am sure any person who has a love for history or who enjoys the novels of C. S. Forester and Patrick O'Brien will just love. A must for any serious student of naval tactics or Napoleonic warfare.