Antonia Fraser

Presents a multiple biography of the six unfortunate wives of Henry VIII--from Catherine of Aragon, a woman of learning and dignity, to religious reformer Catherine Parr

The Wives of Henry VIII

Antonia Fraser¿s Warrior Queens are those women who have both ruled and led in war. They include Catherine the Great, Elizabeth I, Isabella of Spain, the Rani of Jhansi, and the formidable Queen Jinga of Angola. With Boadicea as the definitive example, her female champions from other ages and civilisations make a fascinating and awesome assembly. Yet if Boadicea¿s apocryphal chariot has ensured her place in history, what are the myths that surround the others? And how different are the democratically elected if less regal warrior queens of our time: Indira Ghandi and Golda Meir? This remarkable book is much more than a biographical selection. It examines how Antonia Fraser¿s heroines have held and wrested the reins of power from their (consistently male) adversaries.

Boadicea's Chariot

The Warrior Queens

A biography of Mary Queen of Scots captures the essence of the impulsive and beautiful Scottish queen who lost a throne for love and whose power struggle with Elizabeth I of England ended with her beheading. Reissue.

Mary, Queen of Scots

A study of the life and reign of the Sun King looks at the world of King Louis XIV from the perspective of his intimate relationships with the women in his life, from his mother, Anne of Austria, and his official queen, Marie-Th‚rŠse, to his many mistresses--including Louise de la ValliŠre, Ath‚na‹s, marquise de Montespan, and Fran‡oise de Maintenon. 75,000 first printing.

The Women in the Life of the Sun King

Love and Louis XIV

Robert Gibbings

A very personal anthology, Antonia Fraser has chosen the letters for their emotional power, or state of love expressed. The categories include Passions, Ecstasies, Fears and Worries, Declarations and Farewells. The anthology includes both the obvious (Byron, Keats, Abelard and Heloise) and the anonymous (a Japanese wife whose husband is in battle, a soldier in the trenches).

An Anthology

Love Letters

Antonia Fraser, a popular historian, has delved into archives across Europe to unravel the true story of the plot by fanatical Roman Catholics to blow up the Houses of Parliament and King James I at the opening of Parliament in 1605.

Terror & Faith in 1605

The Gunpowder Plot

Draws on letters, journals, memoirs, and other contemporary accounts to reveal the lives of women, of all stations, in seventeenth-century England

The Weaker Vessel

The subtitle of this wonderful memoir declares its contents: this is 'my life with Harold Pinter', not Lady Antonia Fraser's complete life, and certainly not his. In essence, it is a love story and as with many love stories, the beginning and the end, the first light and the twilight, are dealt with more fully than the high noon in between. The result is a marvellously insightful testimony to modern literature's most celebrated marriage, between the greatest playwright of the age and a beautiful and famous prize-winning biographer. Must You Go? is based partly on Antonia Fraser's own diaries, which she has kept since October 1968 when she suffered from withdrawal symptoms after finishing her first historical biography, Mary Queen of Scots. Antonia Fraser has also used her own recollections, both immediate reactions (she always writes her Diary the next morning, unless otherwise noted) and memories. She has quoted Pinter where he told her things about his past, once again noting the source, and has occasionally quoted his friends talking to her on the same subject. Intriguingly her Diaries always pay special attention to any green shoots where Pinter's writing is concerned, perhaps a consequence of a biographer living with a creative artist and observing the process first hand. Harold Pinter and Antonia Fraser lived together from August 1975 until his death thirty-three years later on Christmas Eve 2008. 'O! call back yesterday, bid time return,' cries one of his courtiers to Richard II. This is Antonia Fraser's uniquely compelling way of doing so

My Life with Harold Pinter

Must You Go?

From beloved historian Antonia Fraser comes the dramatic story of how Catholics in the United Kingdom won back their rights after two centuries of official discrimination. In the summer of 1780, mob violence swept through London. Nearly one thousand people were killed, looting was widespread, and torch-bearing protestors marched on the Prime Minister's residence at 10 Downing Street. These were the Gordon Riots: the worst civil disturbance in British history, triggered by an act of Parliament designed to loosen two centuries of systemic oppression of Catholics in the British Isles. While many London Catholics saw their homes ransacked and chapels desecrated, the riots marked a crucial turning point in their fight to return to public life. Over the next fifty years, factions battled one another to reform the laws of the land: wealthy English Catholics yearned to rejoin the political elite; the protestant aristocracy in Ireland feared an empowered Catholic populace; and the priesthood coveted old authority that royal decree had forbidden. Kings George III and George IV stubbornly refused to address the "Catholic Question" even when pressed by their prime ministers--governments fell over it--and events in America and Europe made many skeptical of disrupting the social order. But in 1829, through the dogged work of charismatic Irish lawyer Daniel O'Connell and with the support of the Duke of Wellington, the Roman Catholic Relief Act finally passed. It was a watershed moment, opening the door to future social reform and the radical transformation of the Victorian age. The King and the Catholics is a gripping, character-driven example of narrative history at its best. It is also a distant mirror of our own times, reflecting the dire consequences of state-sanctioned intolerance and showing how collective action and the political process can triumph over wrongheaded legislation.

The Fight for Religious Liberty in Georgian England

The King and the Catholics

In Cromwell, award-winning biographer Antonia Fraser tells of one of England's most celebrated and controversial figures, often misunderstood and demonized as a puritanical zealot. Oliver Cromwell rose from humble beginnings to spearhead the rebellion against King Charles I, who was beheaded in 1649, and led his soldiers into the last battle against the Royalists and King Charles II at Worcester, ending the civil war in 1651. Fraser shows how England's prestige and prosperity grew under Cromwell, reversing the decline it had suffered since Queen Elizabeth I's death.

Cromwell, the Lord Protector

Charles II and the Restoration

Royal Charles

Le sei mogli di Enrico VIII

Maria Antonieta é uma figura mítica. Julgada por seus contemporâneos e pela história, vista por todos como uma rainha celerada, e depois como bode expiatório, ela sempre foi admirada por sua inabalável coragem perante os grandes cataclismos de seu tempo. Coroada rainha da França em plena saída da adolescência, ela foi incumbida por sua mãe, a poderosa imperatriz Maria Teresa, da tarefa de proteger os interesses de seu país natal, a Áustria. Por toda a vida, exerceu um papel político ambíguo, atraindo a desconfiança e o ódio do povo francês. Neste livro, Antonia Fraser examina detalhadamente a personalidade e os percursos de Maria Antonieta - a infância, as influências dos laços familiares, as relações conjugais marcadas por um casamento não-consumado por um longo tempo, a vinda tão esperada dos filhos, o idílio com o conde Hans Alex von Fersen, seus contatos com as grandes figuras da Revolução e seus esforços heróicos para salvar a família e a monarquia da violência revolucionária. Antonia Fraser apresenta uma visão equilibrada sobre a transformação de uma menina ingênua e pouco sofisticada em uma mulher de lendário porte e elegância. A vida dramática de Maria Antonieta incluiu boatos de casos homossexuais e adultério, um julgamento controverso e uma prisão, antes que ela sucumbisse ao violento desfecho da Revolução Francesa.

biografia

Maria Antonieta

Weaker Vessel

A study of the life and reign of the Sun King looks at the world of King Louis XIV from the perspective of his intimate relationships with the women in his life, from his mother, Anne of Austria, and his official queen, Marie-Thérèse, to his many mistresses--including Louise de la Vallière, Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan, and Françoise de Maintenon. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.

Quiet as a Nun

When King James VI of Scotland inherited the throne of England in 1603 he had ruled his native land almost as long as had Queen Elizabeth. He showed both vision and determination in pursuing his major political goals: a united Britain, and a foreign policy based on peace rather than bellicose chauvinism. Of course, there was a darker side: in the face of growing Parliamentary opposition, he would need all his celebrated wisdom to prevent open conflict. This book is a sympathetic portrait of a worthy first king of Great Britain.

King James, VI of Scotland, I of England

Antonia Fraser's bestselling account of the lives of women in seventeenth-century England. Just how weak were the women of the Civil War era? What could they expect beyond marriage and childbirth in an age where infant and maternal mortality was frequent and contraception unknown? Did anyone marry for love? Could a woman divorce? What rights had the unmarried? What expectations the widows? An expert on the period, Antonia Fraser brings to life the many and various women she has encountered in her considerable research: governesses, milkmaids, fishwives, nuns, defenders of castles, courtesans, countesses, witches and widows.

Woman's Lot in Seventeenth-century England

She was the quintessential queen: statuesque, regal, dazzlingly beautiful. Her royal birth gave her claim to the thrones of two nations; her marriage to the young French dauphin promised to place a third glorious crown on her noble head. Instead, Mary Stuart became the victim of her own impulsive heart, scandalizing her world with a foolish passion that would lead to abduction, rape and even murder. Betrayed by those she most trusted, she would be lured into a deadly game of power, only to lose to her envious and unforgiving cousin, Elizabeth I. Here is her story, a queen who lost a throne for love, a monarch pampered and adored even as she was led to her beheading, the unforgettable woman who became a legend for all time.

Antonia Fraser

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