No comments about Archbishop William King of Dublin (1650-1729) and the Constitution in Church and State.

5 comments about The Reckoning.

1. I love history and all the details. I also love riddles and mysteries. So, when someone combines both into a tale, as Charles Nicholl did, it's bound to please me. This book is the Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography and the Crime Writers' Gold Dagger Awards for non-fiction thriller - both well earned!!

   Marlowe was a very controversial poet and playwright. In 1593, he was stabbed to death in a lodging house in Deptford. To say the least, the manner and circumstances of death was up to question. There was a violent quarrel concerning Marlowe's bill and the official finding has been called dubious at best.

   Nicholl brings to life this historical riddle with style and ingenuity weaving facts, supposition and fiction into one wonderful mix. He presents a very complex study of Marlowe's death, but it is also a marvellous study of the seedier side of Elizabethan society.

   Nicholl walks the masterful tightrope between historical study on Marlowe's murder, a well-written 'who dun it' and portrays with rich detail the period that leaves one wondering if he is not reincarnated!!

   So buy it for the history, writers need to read it if they write about the period for it is also a scholarly work, but most of all sit back and enjoy a real British Who do it.




2. For assiduous research into Marlowe's life and times, THE RECKONING deserves five stars. For pure entertainment value, I would give it only three. So I've split the difference.

   It's impossible to deny the hard work and exhaustive research that went into this densely argued book. Nicholl discovered previously unknown tidbits of fact about Marlowe and other Elizabethan figures (and he is not shy about announcing his role in these discoveries). Unfortunately, the sheer number of digressions into the minutiae of Elizabethan spycraft began to wear on me after a while. At one point Nicholl himself admits that a certain story he is recounting is "wearyingly familiar," as indeed it is - we've read it all before, again and again, in the lives of various minor poets and sometime spies reconstructed throughout the book. Some of these folks are directly connected with Marlowe, some have only the most tangential relationship, and others are dragged in just for atmosphere. An examination of the events in Deptford that left Marlowe dead occupies the first and last sections of THE RECKONING, but the long middle portion is devoted to establishing the background of the killing - a background that seemingly incorporates every single fact Nicholl was able to dig up during months or years of poring through archival documents. It can be "wearying" indeed, not to mention mind-numbing. Still, there is important information here for those interested in the period. Just don't expect a quick or easy read.




3. Many of the other reviews have nailed it. Nicholl has done an extraordinary job of gathering the available evidence to present a seemingly strong case for Marlowe's espionage work and murder. What he hasn't really done is write a gripping story about Christopher Marlowe. The Marlowe chapters are good, and there are several other chapters that aren't about Marlowe but are still good, though I wonder what they're doing in here. It's like he didn't have quite enough material for a book-length manuscript on Marlowe's murder, so he threw in lots of other (admittedly very interesting) stuff. For instance, there's a lot about the Babington conspiracy, which does give one a good insight into the intelligence world of the times, but oops, sorry, has nothing to do with Marlowe per se. Still, I'm glad Nicholl got it published as a book rather than a scholarly article (which is more what it reads like), since this way there's a much greater chance more people will find it and read it.



4. There are only three reasons to read this prize-winning reconstruction of the events surrounding the death of Elizabethan playwright and poet Christopher Marlowe: (1) if you have some particular previous interest in Marlowe; (2) if you have a particular interest in Elizabethan politics, international relations, and espionage circa 1580-1600; (3) if you are interested in the use of archival materials to tell a story. I came to this book for none of these reasons, and so found it sporadically interesting, but overall rather tedious and agonizing to read. Nicholl's strategy is to examine the biographies of the other people in Marlowe's life (including those present at his killing/murder), and to try and connect them to the larger political context. It was a time of deep intrigue, with Elizabeth's court deeply concerned about a Franco-Spanish Catholic invasion and a Catholic fifth column inside England. Plots abounded and there was a correspondingly extensive murky world of informants, semi-official spies, dirty tricks, and many agents provocateur.
   
   Nicholl attempts to position Marlowe within this world as a sometime government spy on the Catholics, and tries to demonstrate how many writers turned to such intelligence work in order to make a more comfortable living. As educated men with skills in foreign languages, writers were often forced to supplement their meager writing income by whatever means they could, and spycraft offered a fairly lucrative, if somewhat dangerous option. The problem was that it was all to easy to get caught up in some complex double- or triple-cross, and secure patronage was very hard to maintain. Nicholl provides examples of various agents who were arrested based on flimsy denunciations and paid for it with their lives. His ultimate, unprovable hypothesis is that Marlowe was a small fish who got in the way of court jockeying for position in relation to all this, and that the Earl of Essex ordered that he be dealt with. The book is full of speculation and leaps of conjecture that will have history buffs gnashing their teeth in annoyance, but he does establish some things rather persuasively. If nothing else, it should put to bed the notion that Marlowe died in some brawl over a tavern bar tab. The setting was actually the home of a respectable widow with high court connections, it was a private meeting between Marlowe and three others which started in the morning and lasted all day, and the three other men involved were all part of the demimonde of Elizabethan espionage.
   
   While I admire Nicholl's extensive archival work in piecing together events from some 400 years ago from so many different obscure sources, the prose is so laden with extraneous details and tangents that it's hard to keep track of what is truly relevant. No figure is too trivial to merit inclusion -- for example, consider that a quick survey of the index shows some 364 different names listed, which works out to the reader having to absorb slightly more than one new person per page. This is especially irksome given that a little more than half of these individuals appear only once in the narrative! Moreover, spot checking ten pages turned up another seven names not in the index-so perhaps the book has a cast of some 500 people! A good example of how this plays out of the prose can be found on page 179: "Like Ingram Frizer at Deptford, Watson and Marlowe stood their ground. They were arrested by the constable of the precinct, Stephen Wyld, a tailor, and marched off to the nearest Justice. This was Sir Owen Hopton, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, whose home was at Norton Folgate. Later that day they were led to Newgate prison..." If one rewrote the above omitting the extraneous detail, it would read as follows: "Watson and Marlowe stood their ground and were arrested and taken to Newgate prison." This is just one example of how Nicholl's account would have benefited from a tighter focus and control over the material, as he appears overeager to share every last archival finding with the reader, at the expense of lucid prose. Ultimately, it's a book whose value depends largely on the reader's interest in the three areas mentioned above.



5. Other reviewers indicate this is a tedious book. I can't agree. It was a terribly complex time, and Charles Nicholl admirably puts that point across. We think of today as being an espionage era, but the Elizabethan times were even worse. Curiously the Queen is no where near the center of the puzzle. I found the unraveling of the puzzle to be of almost operatic proportions, and the difficulties in reading only made me pursue the read with more tenacity. I've read the book twice and find that, if I had trouble keeping the good people straight, I have to think those actually living and eking out a living back then did so, too.

No comments about Boadicea: Warrior Queen of the Celts (Heroes and Warriors).

No comments about An English Consul in Turkey: Paul Rycaut at Smyrna 1667-1678.

1 comments about Wellington: A Military Life.

1. Gordon Corrigan's "Wellington-A Military Life" tries hard to find a new niche in the substantial literature about the First Duke of Wellington. "Wellington" is not a standard biography in that Corrigan doesn't spend a lot of pages on Wellington's life away from the military. Nor is it a battle history of Wellington's campaigns, although these are sketched at varying levels of detail in the course of the narrative. Nor is it an operational or strategic level history of the Napoleonic Wars in the manner of Oman or Chandler.
   
   Corrigan's approach is to depict Wellington as a military officer in the context of the British Army and of the wars of his time. It seems clear from the narrative and the footnotes that the author is very familiar with the British Army of Wellington's time and of our own. The focus is on Wellington's development as a officer through his experiences in Ireland, Flanders, India, the Peninsula, and the final Campaign of the Hundred Days. Corrigan provides much contextual discussion on the ways in which the British military establishment did its business in that day and age. Corrigan's prose is solid, straightforward, and unvarnished. His narrative is interesting and seems to cover all the major points in an already well-plowed field.
   
   It seems clear that Corrigan admires Wellington as a military leader, and the narrative makes the case that Wellington was an exceptionally professional and succcessful military officer, even by the battle-hardened standards of his time. The intent to package Wellington's long military career into a single volume of moderate length means many details must be glossed over and some controversies bypassed, but the author does provide some interesting items for consideration. For example, he asserts that there is no definitive proof that Wellington was ever unfaithful to his wife. This statement is possibly correct in the narrowest sense, although it flies in the face of both a wealth of anecdotes and the judgment of other historians. For another example, Corrigan dismisses much of the academic controversy over the respective generalships of Wellington and Napoleon at Waterloo, by noting that each was ultimately responsible for the conduct of the army each led. Wellington fought a hands-on battle on ground of his own choosing in coordination with his Prussian counterpart; Napoleon gambled much and delegated much, and paid the price.
   
   Corrigan offers short but effective bio's of some of the officers with whom Wellington served. His discussion of Sir John Moore, for example, is more nuanced than the usual hagiographic comments; Corrigan brings out Moore's challenges with higher authority, although he does not give full credit for the beneficial strategic results of Moore's aborted campaign in Spain in late 1808, which probably distracted Napoleon from completing the military conquest of Spain.
   
   Corrigan's biography of Wellington is a very serviceable one volume history for the general reader and for the military professional looking for a straightforward narrative.

5 comments about Prince William: Prince of Hearts.

1. Although I found "Teen People"'s book to be well-researched, I was disappointed. It was well-written, had plenty of pictures of the photogenic prince, and had nice little bits of information about the royal family, but I still was upset about the book.

   I belong to an organization that is attempting to bring some peace to teenage celebrities' (especially teenage royals') lives. In this age of "stalkerazzi" and constant intrusion, we are trying to keep them from being beseiged. These days, satellite communications and the internet have made it even easier for celebrities to become famous the world-over.

   Our ardent wish is that you would think over WHY you are buying the book. We have heard that Prince William doesn't like the press, and We believe that he wouldn't want to be exploited the way TEEN PEOPLE has done with this book. Please think over how YOU would feel in his shoes.

   Finally, please remember that Prince William is a REAL HUMAN BEING who has emotions also. Even though his popularity transcends countries and language barriers, he may feel strongly about this book being published.

   Please think over your decision carefully.




2. Finally, a book that has good pictures, accurate content, and it's fun to read. It's about time they figure out what they're talking about. I gave this book five stars for two reasons: 1) The text is up-to-date, and well researched. 2) Most "un" authorized books you read usually fill you with lies, this one doesn't. I recomend this book to readers of all ages. Believe me, it's a steal at 7.99.



3. This was one of the best books on Prince William I have ever read. It had great pictures and interesting things I never knew before. Teen People went out of there way to get an inside view on the "Prince of Hearts!" I loved this book from start to finish. I would recommend this book to anyone who is a Prince William fanatic of would just like to learn more about him!



4. This is the probably the best book you'll find on him. It offers some realistic info on the Prince and his life. A defenite 'Excellent' buy.



5. This is a wonderful book for people of all ages. it gives lots of information from the day prince william was born up to the present day.It gives information on the history of the last name mountbatten. It's a wonderful book to read and it's so good you'll never want to put it down.

No comments about My Time in the War: An Irishwoman's Diary.

No comments about Connolly: A Marxist analysis.

No comments about George III: An Essay in Monarchy.

No comments about Law, Politics and the Church of England: The Career of Stephen Lushington 1782-1873 (Cambridge Studies in English Legal History).