Antonia Fraser

The Journey

Marie Antoinette

“A book that will leave few readers unmoved.”–San Francisco Chronicle 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. Praise for Mary Queen of Scots “She was sometimes reviled as a scheming whore, sometimes revered as a misunderstood martyr. But she was invariably regarded as fascinating. Antonia Fraser’s richly readable biography demonstrates that Mary’s great fascination continues unabated.”—Time “Compassionate, illuminating, rich in human interest.”—The New York Times ”One of the most fascinating figures in history.” —The Columbus Dispatch “With grace, sensitivity, and a sharp eye for detail, lady Antonia Fraser has succeeded not only in recapturing the real Mary from the symbol but also in illuminating the chaotic age in which she lived.”—Newsweek

Mary Queen of Scots

The self-proclaimed Sun King, Louis XIV ruled over the most glorious and extravagant court in seventeenth-century Europe. Now, Antonia Fraser goes behind the well-known tales of Louis's accomplishments and follies, exploring in detail his intimate relationships with women. The king's mother, Anne of Austria, had been in a childless marriage for 22 years before she gave birth to Louis XIV. A devout Catholic, she instilled in her son a strong sense of piety and fought successfully for his right to absolute power. In 1660, Louis married his first cousin, Marie-Thérèse, in a political arrangement. While unfailingly kind to the official "Queen of Versailles," Louis sought others to satisfy his romantic and sexual desires. Fraser weaves insights into the nature of women's religious lives--as well as such practical matters as contraception--into her sweeping portrait of the king, his court, and his ladies.--From publisher description.

the women in the life of the Sun King

Love and Louis XIV

"Antonia Fraser's memoir of growing up is not only an attempt to recapture the experiences of her Oxford childhood and youth -- in Shakespeare's phrase, to 'call back yesterday, bid time return.' It is also a chronicle of the progress of her love of history since her first discovery of it as a private pleasure when she was a child in the 1930s--her history, as she believed it to be, for the study of history (as her books subsequently attest) has always been an essential part of the enjoyment of life. When Antonia received as a Christmas present a copy of Our Island Story by H.E. Marshall in 1936, it engendered a lifelong interest in history, firing her emotion to write the story that thirty years later became the globally bestselling Mary Queen of Scots. Antonia's mother, born Elizabeth Harman, was the daughter of a Harley Street doctor; her father, Frank Pakenham, was the second son of the Earl of Longford. With the coming of war, Antonia's happy childhood in the Sussex of Puck of Pook's Hill was succeeded by an evacuation to an Elizabethan manor house near Oxford, which had a profound effect on her imagination. A North Oxford upbringing, including life at the Dragon School, followed, and later a Catholic convent which she attended as a Protestant and emerged as a Catholic. In the meantime, holidays included adventures with relations in Anglo-Ireland at Dunsany Castle and Pakenham Hall, before rather less glamorous work experience as 'Miss Tony' in the hat department of a famous London store. After Oxford University came a job in publishing, a fortunate coincidence for one whose sole ambition was to write--and to write history. Her magical memoir, told with inimitable humor and style, is an unforgettable account of the making of a great narrative historian"--

a memoir of growing up

My history

Updated with a new chapter on the Windsors, including the death of Diana, this reference offers a concise guide to the great dynasties of English royalty. Includes genealogical tables, coats of arms, and royal heraldry. 175 illustrations, 100 in color.

The Lives of the Kings & Queens of England

Antonia Fraser's bestselling biography of Henry VIII's six wives; a subject of enduring fascination. The six wives of Henry VIII - Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Catherine Parr - have become defined in a popular sense not so much by their lives as by the way these lives ended. But, as Antonia Fraser conclusively proves, they were rich and feisty characters. They may have been victims of Henry's obsession with a male heir, but they were not willing victims. On the contrary, they displayed considerable strength and intelligence at a time when their sex supposedly possessed little of either.

The Six Wives of Henry VIII

More than four hundred years after her death, Mary Queen of Scots remains one of the most romantic and controversial figures in British history. Antonia Fraser's classic biography of her won the James Tait Prize when it was first published in 1969, became an international bestseller and was translated into nine languages. Mary passed her childhood in France and married the Dauphin to become Queen of France at the age of sixteen. Widowed less than two years later, she returned to Scotland as Queen after an absence of thirteen years. Her life then entered its best known phas: the early struggles with John Knox, and the unruly Scottish nobility; the fatal marriage to Darnley and his mysterious death; her marriage to Bothwell, the chief suspect, that led directly to her long English captivity at the hands of Queen Elizabeth; the poignant and extraordinary story of her long imprisonment that ended with the labyrinthine Babington plot to free her, and her execution at the age of forty-four. Antonia Fraser's biography, four years in the writing, enters fully into the life of an historical figure who continues to capture the popular imagination, and provides a moving answer to the question, `What was Mary Queen of Scots really like?'

Mary, Queen of Scots

A collection of love letters ranging from the famous to the lesser known grouped according to the emotions they convey.

Love Letters

Describes the life of Marie Antionette from her betrothal as a fourteen-year-old girl to the future King Louis XVI, through her life in the French court, to her courage in the face of revolutionaries who sent her to the guillotine.

Marie-Antoinette : une figure mythique. Jugée sévèrement par ses contemporains, perçue tour à tour comme une reine "scélérate" puis comme une victime expiatoire, elle a pourtant été unanimement admirée pour son courage face aux cataclysmes du siècle. Toute sa vie elle jouera un rôle politique ambigu, s'attirant d'abord la méfiance et bientôt la haine du peuple français. Dans ce livre qui a inspiré le film de Sofia Coppola, Antonia Fraser retrace le parcours de la fille de l'impératrice Marie-Thérèse d'Autriche : son enfance, l'influence des liens familiaux, son mariage longtemps non consommé, la venue tant attendue de ses enfants, sa possible liaison avec le comte Axel Fersen, et enfin ses efforts héroïques pour sauver sa famille, et la monarchie, de la tempête révolutionnaire.

Marie-Antoinette

In this illuminating and sweeping biography of France's most infamous queen, best-selling author Antonia Fraser portrays a young woman whose journey from palace to guillotine was doomed by her innocence and the manipulations of the ancien regime. The life of Marie Antoinette has been told before, but never with such sympathy. Antonia Fraser takes us behind the scenes to tell the story of the fourteen-year-old Archduchess of Austria's arrival at the French Court of Versailles, betrothed to the reluctant future King Louis XVI. Hostage to her mother Empress Maria Theresa's foreign policy, Marie Antoinette was immediately accused of political interference by the French, yet she was not interested in state affairs. The kind of queen that Marie Antoinette wanted to be - gracious, philanthropic, patroness of the arts (especially music), and above all maternal and protective of her private life - was not to be. She was criticized fiercely for not following the expensive and intransigent ways of Versailles. Her marriage was a disaster and she was publicly ridiculed for her initial inability to conceive an heir. Her low self-esteem led to years of frivolity and extravagance. Yet after 1789 when she at last became a mother, and her husband collapsed into weakness, Marie Antoinette found both the spirit and the courage to face her accusers and her tragic end. Marie Antoinette is a work of impeccable scholarship that took five years to complete. In preparing her material for this work, Antonia Fraser researched the archives of Austria and France and visited all the sites associated with the Queen. The result is a masterpiece of historical non-fiction.

An atmospheric and gripping mystery from Lady Antonia Fraser's Jemima Shore series. 'Was that what you thought - that you would come back, come back here to beautiful Lark, and get away with it, did you expect that? I can hardly believe it, even of you...' A series of murders have shocked the sleepy, rural village of Lark. The deaths all coincide with the reappearance of actress Christabel Herriot - it is clear that someone has decided her return is not to be tolerated. Amidst the gossip surrounding her reckless affair, Christabel decides to resume her theatrical career, joining a company performing at the Larminster Festival. Jemima Shore has been asked to present a programme on the Festival, so when it becomes clear that Christabel's life is in serious danger, Jemima is on the case again.

Antonia Fraser

About

Books

Join the club