5 comments about The Lost King of France: A True Story of Revolution, Revenge, and DNA.

1. Not only is this book compelling, well written and powerful, it's also a real life example of the horrible things humans will do to one another when power, greed and revenge are at play. Cadbury brings it all to life in vivid detail and shows us that this kind of cruelty can happen in any age, to any one. What survives is the human spirit, the people who fought against all odds and against time to save the heart of a small boy and ultimately preserve his story for the world.



2. During the French Revolution Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI both lost their heads for their "crimes" against France. Their two surviving children however were still held captive in the prison that the family had been staying at since they were caught trying to flee to Austria.
   
   Marie Antoinette's daughter Marie Teresa was relatively lucky and managed to make it out of the grasps of the Revolutionaries and ended up getting married. Her younger brother Louis Charles was not so lucky however.
   
   The Revolutionaries treated him like an animal. At first the Revolutionaries used him as a pawn to get evidence so that they could kill his mother (saying that she had molested him) as well as other gruesome things. The Revolutionaries also kept him in deplorable conditions which made him sick and die.
   
   This may have been an ending to the sad tale of Louis XVI and his family except that over the years rumors circulated that somebody had snuck the real Dauphine out of the prison and the boy that died was not Louis XVII. This led to many people all over the world to say that they were Louis XVII, which the book goes into detail of the most interesting.
   
   200 years on people where no closer to figuring out the mystery when they decided to do DNA testing on a heart. When the boy in the prison died somebody cut his heart out to be placed with the rest of the hearts of Kings at St. Denis. DNA researchers then tested this heart with hairs that they had found of Marie Antoinette's sisters. What did the DNA Test reveal? Who was the boy in the prison? Where the pretenders telling the truth? Read The Lost King of France-a very interesting book!



3. The book "The Lost King of France', is a masterpiece of writing, and the storytelling of history in a readable exciting manner. I could not put it down and read it straight through in about 12 hours.
   The tone of the Author is empathetic and her writing crisp and clear. She captures the excitement, danger, and pathos that tore revolutionary France apart. A Revolution that divided a Nation's national psyche,and in a murderous haze butchered its leading families, and countless ordinary people,in a state sanctioned bloodletting.
   The Declaration of the 'Rights of Man,' was suspended as the Nation divested itself of its counter-revolutionary forces.
   The fate of one small boy caught up in the violence continues to haunt us today; he is a metaphor for the descent into the madness that consumed France.
   The author breaks new ground and with the help of modern science attempts to bring to a conclusion the mystery of the fate of that small boy; the Dauphin, Louis Charles.
   The DNA collection and analysis of the Hapsburgs is explained in a simple manner so that those without a great background in DNA analysis can understand it readily.
   However, in spite of the claims that the identity of the boy who died in the Temple prison and Louis Charles are one and the same, that assertion is not proved definitively by science.
   I would say that the history of the heart and its various journeys is interesting and heart-rending, but all that can be proved by DNA analysis is that the reputed heart of a mystery child is related to the maternal line of the Hapsburgs.
   The Neundorff genetic material has excluded it's connection to Marie Antionette, but the results are not as clean as science would wish.
   The conclusion of Cassiman on the results of the DNA match between Johanna-Gabriela the sister of Marie Antoinette, and the DNA signature of the heart does not really bring to an end the speculation over the fate of the Dauphin. As Cassiman states `the scientific tests only prove the heart in the crypt has to belong to the son of a maternal relative of the Hapsburg family'.
   Philippe Delorme stated that all the hearts of Royals were embalmed, but this is not so. Louis XVth's heart was not embalmed due to the fact he died from Smallpox and it was considered too dangerous.
   I don't think the evidence that Louis Charles died in the Temple is proved beyond a shadow of doubt. The question is still open to history and science.
   Perhaps in the future Deborah Cadbury may have to write another chapter in this story as I do not believe the mystery is quite laid to rest.



4. Yet again, huge applause for Deborah Cadbury here, proving her amazing book Terrible Lizard, was not just a fluke. IN this she follows the story of what happened to the boy king Louis XVII of France. A child when his parents Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette went to the guillotine in the French Revolution. The boy king was kept locked up in appalling conditions, solitary confinement with constant maltreatment. By 1795 he was silent, unable to speak, and that same year he died. Therein lies the beginning and end of this book for almost immediately the rumours that the boy who died in that cell was not the King, but an imposter.
   
   Deborah Cadbury, intrigued by this mystery, who died in that cell? and what of all the imposters who harassed the Kings sister until her death, were they really the King returned from exile? Or were they also imposters? This would be a very short book if that was all that Cadbury wrote of. However Cadbury provides us with an excellent background from Marie-Anotnia leaving her Hapsburg home in Austria and arrival in France as Marie-Antoinette, the teenage wife-to-be of the heir to the French throne.
   
   The reasons for the French revolution, the downfall of the house of Bourbon in France, the terrible end of the boy king in his lonely pest-ridden cell and then the rise of the swathe of counterfeit King Louis XVII's and their legal battles over the centuries - indeed right into the 1950's when the last great court battles were fought in France by the main pretenders to the French Throne.
   
   Ironically the last court battle was fought the same year that Crick and Watson discovered the double helix model which is DNA which was finally to prove the veracity of the claim. It has only been in very recent times that DNA science could be used to identify mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from tiny samples provided. MtDNA, unlike DNA, is passed on almost complete from mother to children, there are on average one variation in 33 generations so it is a very stable way of being able to test family linkages.
   
   Cadbury saves the results of the testing to the very last chapters. The last great search for the body of Louis XVII, the painstaking tracking down of his heart which was taken in the the dissection of the body. The search for sources of DNA sources for Marie-Antoinette and her family - and finally the results.
   
   These may not be conclusive as the results suggest. But Cadbury presents all the evidence and makes conclusions which I found convincing, I won't spoil the answer by revealing it, but it will keep you reading to the last page.
   
   This is a phenomenal book, well researched, written with the easily readable style Cadbury showed in Terrible Lizard, and a compelling page turner.
   
   My highest recommendation.



5. I'm a history buff and I love reading about the French Revolution, so this book was a must. Besides, I had already read about the DNA investigation that finally solved the mystery of Louis XVII's fate, but I didn't know the details, or the full story of his captivity after being separated from his family.
   
   The DNA part is very interesting, but what I found really harrowing was the description of the shameful treatment meted out to this little boy whose only fault was to be the son of the despised king and queen (who, by the way, displayed a lot more dignity in their final hours than those who sent them to the scaffold). I agree wholeheartedly with the words of the bishop who, in a small ceremony, blessed the heart on which the DNA tests were conducted. He said that the heart of the small victim was a symbol of all those children who have suffered through the ages - and continue to suffer - because of wars, revolutions, and the cruelty of adults. This kid, seven years old when his father was executed, was locked up in a filthy cell away from his family and friends, regularly abused morally and physically, and referred to in contemporary documents as "the wolf cub" or "the ape's son" (the wolf being Louis XVI and the ape Marie Antoinette, or maybe it was the other way round).
   
   I found myself seriously hating people such as Hebert, the despicable pamphleteer who through his libellous paper contributed enormously to the royal family's unpopularity and the little boy's ordeal, or the shoemaker Simon, who brutalized the helpless child entrusted to his "care".
   
   However great and good the motives and ideals behind the Revolution - which no one intends to deny -, it led to acts of unspeakable brutality against innocent, defenseless people. How fitting that many of those who committed or instigated them ended their days with the same violence they so easily used against others. And how fitting, also, that this little hapless victim of cruelty and hatred should finally have found, in the true telling of his story, the vindication that his senseless suffering deserved.

5 comments about At Home with the Marquis de Sade: A Life.

1. Strangely, though it is from him that the word sadism is derived, I found it no torment to read this delightful book. There are many myths around the Marquis de Sade, as he has always been more talked about then read. This biography shows us a gentler side of the man by focusing upon his relationships with the women in his life. Though he could be cruel like any of us, his "crimes" pail in comparison to those of many of his contemporaries. What I find interesting about the Divine Marquis is not so much the writings as the energy of the man himself. Sade was almost incapable of restraint, except when it came to saving his own skin. When locked away behind prison walls and unable to gratify his desires in the flesh, he turned to the pen to pour those energies onto paper. Called "the freest spirit who ever lived" by Apollinaire, Ms. Gray shows us the great lesson of such freedom, the necessity of compromise in civilized life. In his last years, in a letter to an old friend he writes: "I am not happy, but I am well." How many of us, thwarted in our dreams and desires, might say the same?



2. Francine Gray has humanized Sade for us. The full description of his activities prior to his arrest,as given by Gray, confirms what Sade says of himself,"I am a libertine: I have conceived everything one can conceive in that genre, but I've surely not done all I've imagined and surely will never do it.." Sade was a visionery of cruel and convoluted sex. As regards the use of whips and Cat-'o'-nine tails and sodomy, he was only following the style of his contemporary aristocrats, a way of life which treated prostitites and the lower orders as captive booty, like the nubile black slave girls were treated in the South here till the Civil war.That way of life amongst the French Aristocracy .seems to have continued at least till the twenties of the last century- see Proust's portrayal of the proclivities of Baron Charlus in the last volume of his 'Remembrance of Things Past' ['In Search of last Time' in the recent Penguin Edition]. The description of the French Revolution by Madame Sade is an insider's account of the cataclysm. The black tid-bits about the leaders of the French Revolution, - Mirabeau [incest with his sister and writing erotica] and Danton, ['who read Justine to masturbate']are quite revealing and also raise the question how it is that lechers and the morally defecient become leaders of rabble or are chosen as such by the rabble.Francine could have analysed what exactly was the attraction Sade had for women of all types- the intellectual Milli Rousset, the beautiful Anne Launay,his sister-in-law, the uneducated Constance and others.The book is, on the whole, a great read. B.T.Sampath



3. When I first started reading this, it seemed more about the women (his mother and wife) than the Marquis. So, I read further to prove myself wrong.....not very successful. I had read another reveiw about this book that said the author sounded like a mother chastising her son; that sounded pretty close to what I read from the book. When it comes to the Marquis de Sade, I beleive that the author should have a presence, but not a(n) seemingly overbearing/opinionated one like in this book. I didnt finish it; after a few pages I realized this was not what I was looking for: something about the Marquise de Sade, not the women in his life.
   If you want some type of psychoanalysis-biography of de Sade( which I want) this isn't it. It seems well researched, just not about the right subject.



4. This is a very good book that pulls no punches about Sade but does not condemn him either. It is a facinating story told through Sade's letters and it breaths life into this strange and brilliant man. The book does not enter into any of the complex theoretical debate that surround Sade so it can be read simply as a facinating story of a facinating man. But it is by no means simplistic and is a good primer for anyone who might want to enter the catacomb of Sade theorists. Read and enjoy. Ruminate and reflect.



5. The art of biography is a tricky one indeed. The biographer must make the subject come alive, while keeping him/herself far in the background. Unfortunately for 'At Home With the Marquis De Sade,' one often learns more about Francine Du Plessix Gray and her prejudices than about the Mad Marquis. To be fair though, De Sade is dangerous territory for the biographer. So much has been heaped around the myth that the truth about the man may never come to light.
   
   Gray does admirable work with her sources though. Page after page, she unindates you with quotes from Sade's voluminous correspondence. The Alphonse-Donatien de Sade that emerges from these letters is one of a spoiled and self-centered child ignored by his profligate father and cold, unloving mother. Gray traces Sade's development into an imperious adolescent whose arrested childhood spurs him to find love and acceptance at the expense of others. The young nobleman inflicts painful whippings and other brutalities on a variety of servant girls and prostitutes. Sade's defense of his behavior underlies the inhumanity of the Ancien Regime. They were 'whores' and deserved no better. Gray brilliantly shows the connection between Sade's aristocratic snobbery and his casual disdain for those below him on the social ladder. With the arrival of the Revolution, the Terror and eventually, Napoleon, Sade finds himself playing the political chameleon in a continous effort to escape the blade and free himself from prison.

   Thoroughout the book, Gray looks upon her subject rather bemusedly. Horrified at his misogyny and cruelty, she appears skeptical, if not downright cynical towards his occasional outbursts of kindness. In Gray's opinion, Sade was an overgrown child who never grew up to learn the fundamental lesson of 'civilization,' that of controlling our individual passions for the good of the whole. This Freudian-inspired thesis underscores the whole work, where Gray acts like the condescending aunt to a naughty nephew.

   The strongest link in the book is Gray's examination of the women in Sade's life, foremost, his docile, all-forgiving wife, Pélagie, and his conformist, propriety-mongering drill sergeant of a mother-in-law, Madame de Montreuil. We get a sense of Sade's relationship with women, caught between the Scylla of Pélagie's adoring meekness and the Charybdis of the Madame's censuring strictness. Sade navigated his whole life between these two extremes, worshipping the one, loathing the other. But to view women as equal, suffering human beings just like himself was impossible. Sade needed both the angel and the harpy.

   Where Gray's psychoanalysis proves weakest is with the discussion of Sade's complex and confused sexuality. She never really addresses the question of where his desire fit in. Homosexual? Bisexual? Heterosexual? Pansexual? Sade seemed to include all at once. Whilst such terms were the product of the 19th century, Gray remains silent on where to put the Marquis. Instead, she, like her Enlightenment predecessors, focuses on the sexual acts of Sade's varied repetoire: masturbation, flagellation and of course, 'sodomy,' which she incorrectly attributes to anal sex alone. Even more importantly, she never explores the reason for his being burned in effigy after his bisexual orgy in Marseilles which set him down the road of infamy. He was sentenced to death for having sex with a man, his valet, not for the horrible cruelties inflicted upon two young prostitues. The Ancien Regime tolerated the abuse of women while condemning the 'crime' of homosexuality. And herein lies a key to further examining the Marquis. Were his shocking exploits and even more outlandish writings the outlet of sexual energies he could only express at the pain of death? Gray includes nothing about this paranoid homophobia of Ancien Regime France and of European history as a whole. Instead, she rests her case on the very questionable thesis that civilization is the only bulwark against barbarity. Two devilish European wars of destruction might prove otherwise. Perhaps civilization's 'necessary suppression' breeds the seeds of barbarity itself.

   Such questions and many more are left to the reader's musings, while the troubled Marquis never really leaves the page. Gray imprisons him once more in a quagmire of 'original' materials, while the man himself silently rattles his chains at us. 'At Home With the Marquis De Sade' journeys down the hitherto unexplored side-streets of the 'divine' marquis' existence, but ultimately fails to bring him to life. For that, I guess we'll have to wait.

5 comments about Death of a Princess: The Investigation.

1. Sancton and Mac Leod did one hell of a job, considering the book was published but a few months after Diana and Dodi's deaths.
   
   They investigate the conspiracy theories that were floating around then and give evidence to either support or discredit them but they allow enough space for you to be the judge of whether the theory is based in fact or fiction.
   
   It was impossible for the book to have come to any kind of ending, conclusive or not, because at the time it was written, evidence was still being sorted out, arraignments were being made, and people were being interviewed. In short, everything was still a mess.
   
   I highly recommend this book for its unbiased reporting and also for the minute by minute account of Diana and Dodi's last day alive.



2. I liked this book. Very interesting. I followed all the media news and just could not get enough to satisfy my curiosity until I read this book. I don't know why I have been so touched by her death? It is a mystery to me, also? I just liked her when she was alive and was shocked at hearing about her accident. I, too, ordered the tape of John Elton's song about her. I want to thank all the readers who gave their comments on this book, it helped me to buy this book.



3. Interesting facts about the papparazzi and the holiday leading up to the accident which killed Diana. The chapter reporting the engineer's finding is not only technical, but gives supporting proof of a collision with a Fiat prior to the deadly collision with the 13th pillar of the Alma Tunnel. This book gives a handful of theories to think about, but the only thing not convincing to me is the conspiracy theory that the Princess was going to wed Dodi. The ending is not conclusive.



4. Although this is an interesting look at how French authorities conduct an investigation it is not conclusive.



5. This book contains many factual mistakes, but since it was written over 2 years ago, before many facts were uncovered by the French investigation, I am not really penalizing it much for that.

   About half of the book consists of background information on Dodi and Diana. This part could have been much shorter. I don't need to know, nor do I care about, Dodi's favorite pets as a child.

   The actual part related to the investigation was an evenhanded treatment of the facts as they were known in 1998. To the authors' credit, they investigate the most wild theories in a fair manner. When information was not known or available, they plainly state so. Unfortunately, they hint darkly a few times in the book that a source (which they can't name) tells them there is 'something big' not known about the case. This shot down the authors' credibility.

5 comments about The Princess Who Changed the World (Diana Princess of Wales).

1. I get so tired of hearing people "trash" a woman who (although she made her share of mistakes--like everyone else),did so many things that brought joy and happiness to the lives of so many people--usually the less fortunate.. Sure, she was a Princess, and wealthy and famous, but she also lived a life full of pain. Money and fame cannot take away the pain other people caused her. She was thrown into a lifestyle and a family who did very little to help her. She wanted to learn! No one wanted to bother to teach her. Just throw her to the wolves...She did very well, despite all of the troubles she had to deal with in her own life. She tried to put her unhappiness aside to help others. How many people do that in the world we Live In today. All people seem to care about is themselves. Frankly, even though Diana made mistakes, she also tried very hard to deal with her problems, while helping others with theirs. And she couldn't have possibly been a better mother to her children. She just wanted and needed love, like everyone else in the world! I am very proud that I knew a woman who did as much to help others, as Diana did. Anyone who wants to "knock" her, should try living the life she had to live and see how well they do!!!



2. I felt the author attempted to shed new insight on a beautiful woman who died far too early in her short life. Prince Charles said it best once...he felt that in time she would have come back to him, possibly very ill, and he would have taken care of her. I do believe, in spite of what he had told the press in his famous BBC interview, that he did love her. She was the mother of their boys.



3. A good book about the lovely and wonderful Diana though perhaps not the best I've ever read. Still, those of us who truly loved and admired this wonderful woman will want to read it.

   To the "Reader From Oxford England" whose nasty review appeared above: Why bother to share your vapid and meaningless thoughts? My suggestion for you is to go and find other Diana-bashers, such as that two-faced Robert Fellowes, and have a great big BLOW-FEST with one another!!




4. This book seems to be either an attempt to just make money from Diana's death, or perhaps a belated apology for the trash he had written about Diana in his earlier book. This book is more sympathetic to Diana, but not as extensive in the biographical coverage of Diana's life, mostly about the last days of her life.



5. This glutinous tribute to England's Great Whore and Traitoress made me want to spew.

3 comments about Marie Antoinette.

1. Belloc's erudite, opinionated and symphonically dramatic biography of the ancien regime's last, maligned queen feels like the work of a lifetime, yet it is only one of many dozens of books the author wrote during his very long and productive career. A social critic and Catholic apologist attuned to the notion of civilization in decline, Belloc is a wonderful temperamental fit with his heroine and her milieu. As you would expect, Belloc is at drawn sabers with the frivolous sophistication of the Enlightenment philosophes, and finds in the royal couple unlikely, indeed rather unintentional martyrs for what he usually calls "the Faith". His sense of the pair's underlying humanity only helps him, however, to place their acts of indecisiveness and overreach in a more alarmingly dramatic light. With every chapter one feels the underlying beat of Destiny's drum, marching us inexorably forward in the Queen's footsteps to the guillotine. Each apparent reprieve of fate, each seeming change of fortune only serves to tighten the coils even more. Belloc also has a great appreciation for the splendors of the time-- exonerating the Queen of most of the foolish exaggerations of her expenses that found such perilous belief in the minds of her subjects, he can still evoke the splendors of a ball, the rituals of the Court, the relief of an extravagance indulged, with terrific and memorable economy. That does not contradict, however, the luxurious Late Romantic template of his prose. Though Belloc, like his great friend Chesterton, is the sort of single-minded religionist who many persons, even of faith, might regard suspiciously as a "crank", his "Marie Antoinette" is, as historical writing, scrupulously scientific in its approach to evidence, though it is overlaid with a prominent, indeed firmly explicit, metaphysical agenda. For me, Belloc's assertiveness is one of his charms, and while I must firmly decline to believe some of his broad contentions, I am very happy that he has woven them into his work. There is hardly a page of "Marie Antoinette" without a substantive claim about broader humanity-- about education, economics, military affairs and their impact on events, public opinion, the theatre, the arts, the art of living, and of course on religion and philosophy-- and these are extraordinarily ponderable and noteworthy. Belloc finds in Marie Antoinette a tragic heroine for the 18th Century-- an era which, as he notes at the very beginning, was quite at odds with the very notion of tragedy-- and thus implies that Fate can choose to write us out a tragedy whether we will have it or no. In limning the life and downfall of this glittering princess, Belloc finds an Everywoman who yet remains, surprisingly, a Queen to the end.



2. Hilaire Belloc tells the tragic tale of the storied Queen of France with style and a proper sense of wonder. Most particularly fascinating about Belloc's narrative is his detailed and clear description of the famous, or rather famous, affair of the diamond necklace. Here we see the true villians of the plot as the scheming La Motte and the nefarious Cagliostro, the dupe as the foolish Cardinal Rohan, and the quite uninvolved, but nonetheless tarnished target of the fraud, Queen Marie Antoinette. Belloc illustrates here quite clearly that the propaganda surrouning this rather absurd, and yet critical episode, emanated from Masonic London, the great enemy of thrones and order.
   
   In his preface, Belloc records his philosphy of writing history, which explains volumes about his unique style and his peerless position as a popular historian. Here, he writes thusly,
   
   "But undigested detail is of the very essence of academic or university history, as it is still conceived, because such an accumulation give the uninstructed reader an impression of prodigous learning in the writer. Now, in my conception of the way history should be written, not the writer but the reader comes first; it is the instruction, and even the pleasure, of the reader which should be the aim of historical writing, not the reputation of the writer for prodigious reading."
   
   How remarkable! Writing in the early twentieth century, Belloc then correctly discerned a trend which has become ever so much more profound over the years. As a history undergraduate at a great American university in the third quarter of the last century, I could certainly attest that university historical writing was then so encumbered with meaningless detail and devoid of literary value as to drive the most motivated of students to other disciplines. We needed then, and still need more so now, historians in the great tradition of Hilaire Belloc.
   
   Read this excellent book. And be both enriched, hugely entertained, and well informed by the experience.



3. I read this book and Antonia Fraser's biography back to back, and was struck by the eerie similarities between the two--both had great affection for their subject, while recognizing her obvious flaws and foibles. Apparently, Antonia did not read Belloc's earlier work, she simply has a similar sensibility (no surprise, both being Catholic). Antonia is a great writer, and her treatment, being the more up-to-date (such as deciphering exactly why Louis XVI could not "do the deed") deserves the nod. But Belloc is always entertaining and worth reading. Here, his judgments do stand up to the test of time; and he clearly had fun writing this rollicking biography. An overlooked gem.

1 comments about King Edward II: Edward of Caernarfon His Life, His Reign, and Its Aftermath 1284-1330.

1. Roy Martin Haines is a life member Clare Hall, Cambridge University, a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and the author of numerous scholarly works concerning British history. In King Edward II: His Life, His Reign, And Its Aftermath, 1284-1330, Haines presents a scholarly, exhaustive, painstakingly researched, in-depth, and authoritative account of the days and rule of Edward of Caernarfon (1284-1327). King Edward II inherited a war with Scotland, yet his lack of skill in the art of war would eventually precipitate Scotland's independence. Ultimately, Edward would also become the first anointed king of England to be dethroned since Ethelred in 1013. King Edward II is an informed, informative, and very highly recommended contribution to personal and academic British History & Biography reference collections.

1 comments about Henry VIII (Life and Times series) (Life and Times Series).

1. I am a newcomer to the life of this amazing English king, but this book has been truly fascinating. Well written, informative, and easy to read, I recommend Mrs. Fraser's book to anyone who wants to start learning about Henry. For an expert on the subject, this is probably too basic for you.

5 comments about Her Little Majesty: The Life of Queen Victoria.

1. Like most reviewers, I found this delightful little volume a good read, without the detail one normally encounters in a biography. One gathers from this work that the the queen's unhappy childhood had a profound effect upon the rest of her life; including, in rather a perverse way, the relationship with her husband, whom she is said to have both adored and harassed.
   
   I have to admit that I purchased my new copy for one pound in London (remainder!). I am doubtful if I would have paid full price. But a good read.



2. I was hoping for a lot more from this book after reading other reviews and noting how many biographies of famous women Carolly Erickson has written. Frankly this book read like a student's history project, that is, essentially a time-line with only a small effort to truly express who Queen Victoria was. The book was not very captivating and I only finished it because it was the only book I had on an 8 hour flight. There are probably better biographies of the Little Queen out there.



3. This is a very brief and often inaccurate portrayal of Queen Victoria and the 19th century, during a time when everything that people knew and accepted was changing. For a more accurate biography about Queen Victoria, I suggest "Victoria Victorious" by Jean Plaidy. Much better.



4. This book is very well written. THere are many similies and metaphors which put you back into the life of Queen Victoria. It is an educational book, yet it reads like a story. It is most definetly not like most historical non-fiction books.



5. This is a small book for such a large subject. It keeps to the facts and indeed it does not overwhelm you with those. I found some of the expressions used in the book to be a little odd, almost as if the writer was trying to write in style that she thinks is "real" English.

   I enjoyed the book and it has made me want to learn more about this quite remarkable woman. In short ;read it and enjoy , but don't expect to be turned into an expert by the end of the book.

2 comments about Queen Victoria: An Eminent Illustrated Biography.

1. This book was sloppily produced. Typographical errors permeate. There are distracting mistakes in some of the captions, too, such as that for a picture of a gray bearded, corpulent Prince of Wales supposedly taken in 1863 when he would have been a man in his early twenties (p. 205). The author -- and his subject -- deserve much better. The publisher deserves a spanking.



2. This book is a "must have" for anyone interested in royalty or history in general. It's a lovely book in a scaled down coffee table format.

2 comments about Invitation to a Royal Weddiing: Edward and Sophie, June 19, 1999.

1. I've got it, there's a lot of information (historical and biographical) here but I wasn't bowled over by it. The most valuable part may be the Sophie material that it contains, she hasn't been abused the way Diana was.



2. I have checked this book out so many times at my local libary I just may have to get a copy of this book for my own personal collection! the author has done other books about the wedding of Charles and Diana and Andrew and Sarah . They were very good books, yet this one is the absolute best one of them all! the stories about the couple are terrific, the pictures are senstional! a grand book to read if you are a fan of the royal family! highly recommened!