Post
by Chatterbox » Thu June 18th, 2009, 7:53 am
And as for Carolly Erickson's historical 'entertainments' -- nevermore *she said darkly*. I have ceased to find them entertaining enough even to go to the trouble of borrowing them from a library. Such utter, wholesale disregard for historical fact... *splutter, splutter*
Are headless ladies making a comeback??
I'm glad Campbell Barnes is making a comeback, albeit with a headless lady. Her characters may be a bit overly saccharine (she turns Henry into a doting father in My Lady of Cleves, and I have trouble imagining him as a doting anything -- lascivious, yes, but doting...?) but she's a sentimental fave of mine. I do hope they push past the Tudors and get into some of her more obscure ones. Lady on a Coin is about Frances Stuart, a friend of Minette's and love of Charles II (but possibly not his mistress), who was disfigured by smallpox. Mary of Carisbrooke is another good Stuart-era tale, revolving around Charles I's imprisonment at the castle & later imprisonment there of his daughter Elizabeth.
Why don't the Stuarts get any time?? Charles may not have whacked his wives' heads off, but he did get his own surgically removed... Yes, I know someone is busily recounting the lives of all his mistresses, and there are some decent Plaidy books, but if there is one story itching to be old it is Mary & Anne's conscious attempt to disgrace & unseat their father. There's a story waiting for a good retelling.
Divia, do try either Margaret George's book or Reay Tannahill's on the Scottish Queen. The latter is less of a doorstop. Either are really v. good, IMO, and less interior monologue than featured in TOQ. I'm not a big Mary fan (I think she was a bit of an idiot, not worthy of the romantic heroine title) but both are good. And there is an excellent Antonia Fraser bio of her. Any of those will take the bad TOQ taste out of your mouth!!!