1 comments about Phoenix: Robert, Earl of Essex: An Elizabethan Icarus.

1. First, there is much about this book to commend it. As noted above, it contains some interesting and insightful comments by Essex's contemporaries. The writing is clear and occasionally rather musical. The life of Robert, Earl of Essex and the last of Elizabeth's favorites, is described in considerable detail. The image of a man of great charm but stunningly bad judgement emerges, sometimes in spite of all this detail.

   What I found off-putting was the tone of some of the writing -- a sort of headline hyperboly. And characterizations tend to become caricatures: at one point, the author evokes the image of Elizabeth's successor as "young King James cavorting with his boyfriends." The Scottish king was in his late thirties when he succeeded to the English throne -- hardly young in the Renaissance world. And the author misses a potent parallel: according to many historians, it is likely that James Stuart's physical relationships with his male favorites were not much different from those of the late queen with hers. James VI and I was undoubtedly attracted to handsome young men, and certainly carried on passionate friendships, but it is by no means certain that physical liasons developed.

   Nor is this the only personal judgement offered up. Elizabeth is "nasty, vicious and self-centered." This snapshot opinion is bolstered with documented events and considerable speculation. The author repeatedly and matter-of-factly informs us of this complicated monarch's motives and feelings and thoughts. Sometimes her mood is not difficult to discern; Elizabeth had a famous temper and wasn't above shrieking at a courtier or boxing a lady's ears. These moments are described with relish, and they do indeed flesh out the author's portrait of an aging, difficult woman. The author's depiction of the internal Elizabeth, however, can be exasperating. Most jarring perhaps was the assertion that Elizabeth took up with Essex because "she had nothing to lose." This, when the cover's subtitle breathlessly promises that her "affair" with this young man "nearly dethroned her," is not only presumptous, but contradictory.

   On the other hand, readers whose primary interest is political intrigue are likely find this book of value. If its goal was to show the uncertainties of fortune and the odd machinations of Elizabethan society, it succeeded admirably. There are few books available on the life of Essex, and this one is worth a look.

No comments about Duke Richard of York 1411-1460 (Oxford Historical Monographs).

No comments about Excursion to Hell.

No comments about Letters of John Keats (Oxford Letters & Memoirs).

1 comments about Cunningham.

1. This book is a well written biography of Admiral Cunningham, or ABC as he was known in the service. Many people consider ABC the greatest Admiral since Nelson, which is quite a high expectation.
   
   The writing does not drag, as many biographies do. And while the writer obviously admires ABC, and puts him on a pedestal it is not a real tall pedestal.
   
   Now, why did I give the book four stars and not five? Two reasons. First, the book skips quickly through ABC's early life and career, and almost completly avoids ABC's part in WWI, which he spent largely commanding a destroyer. Second, while he gives an excellent description of the Battle of Mattapan, ABC's largest fleet action, he fails to indicate why the battle was important.
   
   All in all, if you like biographies or naval history, this book would be an excellent addition to your library.

2 comments about Eminent Georgians: The Lives of King George V, Elizabeth Bowen, St. John Philby, and Lady Astor.

1. John Halperin takes Lytton Strachey as his model and provides four short lives of people he views as emblematic of the "second Georgian" era - King Geroge V himself, Elizabeth Bowen, St. John Philby and Nancy Astor. The results are interesting without being particularly memorable. Halperin tells his stories in a plain documentary fashion, without much analysis and with none of the mordant wit or strong opinions of Strachey's nasty little classic. Such a straightforward approach works best if bolsered by extensive research, but the slim bibliography indicates a newspaper profile rather than an original and insightful work. All this being said, Bowen, Philby and Astor are interesting enough as people to making reading "Eminent Georgians" worthwhile. As for the good King George, it will take a much more persuasive writer to bring that admirable but dull monarch to life on the page.



2. This certainly isn't Lytton Strachey. Like Strachey and Richard Holmes, however, Halperin well realizes the inherent great enjoyability of very short biographies of extremely interesting people. There seems to be almost no original research here, and Halperin is willing to make an extremely shallow and lazy transition to an anecdote just to squeeze it in, but he does write with grace (and has an eye for a great story). Oddly, there's a running theme throughout the book: the perfidy of what Halperin extremely loosely calls "treason," although what he means by treason seems so broad at times as to be almost meaningless. The best lives here are of the stodgy George V and the hilariously irreverent Nancy Astor, because with both Halperin seems really to have a new angle he wants to bring out; while his willingness to applaud the late king for his steadfastness and decency as compared to his eldest son's thorough rottenness, it does not seem to occur to Halperin that Edward VIII's character might be in part due to his parents' legendarily neglectful cold and neglectful care. Halperin's extremely heavyhanded evaluations of Elizabeth Bowen's novels are also a bit puzzling, although Bowen's exceptionally eventful life and character make up for his judgmentalism towards her fiction.

No comments about The Man from God Knows Where: Thomas Russell 1767-1803.

5 comments about The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline.

1. A biography about one of England's most enigmatic and on this side of the pond at least lesser known Queens. Charlotte born into the rather stogy provincal atmosphere of the Hanoverian Court was married off while still a teenager to her first cousin the future King George IV. A dandy and bon vivant who had already contracted a marriage years ago to the attractive and apparently virtuous widow Mrs. FitzHerbert. Alas Mrs. FitzHerbert was not only a commoner but a staunch catholic and George was a spend thrift. When His father refused to continue filling his coffers unless he found himself a proper (i.e. Royal) bride he abandoned Mrs. FitzHerbert and wed poor Charlotte.

   Almost at once however he was repulsed by his cousin (whom he had never before met). After siring one child (a daughter Charlotte) he promptly returned to the far more worldly and appealing Mrs. FitzHerbert. This led poor Charlotte to rebel.

   Her rebellion was to cost her dearly. Leading in the end to a notorioius and flawed trial headed by parliment to decide if she was in fact guilty of adultry.

   Charlotte led a tragic but interesting life. As with Marie-Antoinette it can be said that Charlotte's own bad judgement and ignorance were as much (if not more) to blame for her misfortunes as the ill will of her enemies.

   Overall it was an engaing account of a fascinating woman and period in time. It gave glimpses into the lives of the rest of the British Royal Family. From George's rather embittered maiden sisters to his mad father King George III and his outwardly sweet but meddling mother Queen Charlotte.




2. Whatever were they THINKING!?! I mean, the author, and worse, the editors. This is an appallingly bad book. I staggered through the whole University of California paperback version, convinced that eventually it would improve. Sadly, I was too optimistic.

   Caroline of Brunswick was clearly quite an unpleasant person all 'round. Ill-educated, dishonest, gullible, ill-bred, plain at best, lacking in style and sense, desperate for any sort of attention, she would be difficult to like in the hands of the most talented biographer. It's a shame that she was left to Flora Fraser. This particular Ms. Fraser is living proof that a talent for biography isn't hereditary. She is pendantic, tedious, and apparently without enthusiasm for her subject, whom she abandons regularly in pursuit of political minutiae.

   I was startled by the ineptitude of the editing. In a number of instances the vocabulary used was clearly anachronistic slang, but the quotes were not footnoted, leaving the reader bewildered as to the meaning of the quote. In these instances, the Oxford English Dictionary was no help, surely a responsible standard for an editor of a British/American release? Some quotes are simply inaccurate.

   I suspect the editors may have been overawed by Flora Fraser's lineage, and hopeful of a comparison between Diana Spencer and Caroline of Brunswick. If Caroline was as Flora Fraser describes, there is scant ground for such hopes.

   I majored in British history, am quite accustomed to dry texts, and have read each and every one of Lady Antonia Fraser's splendid works with pleasure. In this case, the daughter should NOT have attempted to go into the family trade, she has no talent for it.

   I very much regret the time I wasted plodding through this exceedingly dull book about a sad, dreary woman who would have been best left to rest in peace.

   And no, to the best of my knowledge, I'm no relation to this branch of Frasers.




3. Flora Fraser writes beautifully, and her research is impeccable. This is one of the best "life and times" set in Georgian England available today. The popularity of Queen Caroline with the populace, always looking for symbols of opposition to the monarchy, makes clearer the similar fascination in our time with as inexplicable a figure as Diana, Princess of Wales. The books is a great read that has something to say, rather like the wonderful Mediterranean histories written by the late Sir Steven Runicman (e.g., History of the Crusades). The Unruly Queen, along with David Gilmour's Curzon, are must reading for those interested in British history.



4. This is a fascinating, almost incredible, true story, but (as reviewers who've preceded me here have pointed out) Flora Fraser hasn't managed to do it justice. Queen Caroline's actions are so baffling, so inconsistent, and so seemingly self-destructive that a writer really must have a "take" on her for a biography to be enlightening or moving. Fraser seems almost afraid to take a stand, or else so mired in her research that she's lost the need for a big picture. The result is that when Caroline veers in completely new directions-- suddenly taking lovers after years of faithfulness to a husband who despised her, or leaving England at the drop of a hat after years of determination to fight her battles there-- the reader gets the (highly detailed) facts without any insights that could help us understand a seemingly random shift. We don't even learn why Caroline, with few marital prospects into her mid-20s, was chosen to marry the future George IV in the first place. It's not even clear whether Fraser likes her subject, approves of her actions, or felt much enthusiasm for the project except as a collector of commemorative objects she calls "Carolingiana." I guess writing biographies is just the family business...
   
   Specific oddities include no real sense of George IV's personality or motivation, the tendency of key people to drop out of the narrative altogether when they're not present in Caroline's life (even those important to Caroline, like her daughter Charlotte), and detailed descriptions of paintings (by one of Caroline's supposed lovers, Thomas Lawrence) that Fraser hasn't actually included in the illustrations. So much is made of the transformation of Caroline's appearance over the years that we really do need to see more from her later life than caricatures and cartoons.
   
   It would seem inevitable that someone will make a great drama out of this story-- as a biography, or even as a play or film. It's a shame that Fraser didn't see that she could convey some of this drama, and real insight, without compromising her extensive research.



5. Both Fraser Mother & Fraser daughter can research a subject to death. However, neither writes gracefully or entertainingly. This book reads like a compilation of notes. Yawn. I'd rather read a loosey goosey Mitford biography, as if I wanted sleep, I'd read dissertations.

1 comments about Chief O'Neill's Sketchy Recollections of an Eventful Life in Chicago.

1. Francis O'Neill (1848-1936) was born in Tralibane, Co. Cork, in the southwest of Ireland and, like many of his countrymen at that time, emigrated to the US where he eventually settled in Chicago and climbed through the ranks of the police department to become a highly regarded Superintendent of Police in 1901. Arguably, O'Neill is best remembered in the US, however, for having compiled several large collections of Irish traditional music, which he published in the early 1900s, and which have since become a standard reference for Irish musicians and Irish music lovers the world over. O'Neill wrote a couple of books about his musical hobby, and those who have been able to procure reprints of "Irish Folk Music - A Fascinating Hobby" and "Irish Minstrels and Musicians" will be familiar his wonderful prose and gift as a story-teller. Now comes "Chief O'Neill's Sketchy Recollections of an Eventful Life in Chicago" (Northwestern U Press, 2008), edited from a recently re-discovered manuscript by the most famous policeman in Irish music, where he writes in the same delightful style about his youth in Ireland, his adventures on the high seas, and his career in the Chicago police department. Those who have read Nicholas Carolan's excellent biography of O'Neill, "A Harvest Saved," will be familiar with some of the facts, but O'Neill's accounts, at times charming, humorous, or gripping, and always thoroughly engrossing, are well worth rediscovering through O'Neill's own words.

No comments about Nazi Refugee Turned Gestapo Spy: The Life of Hans Wesemann, 1895-1971.