false 71118 123515 0385721579 9780385721578 8 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171854023m/123515.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171854023s/123515.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123515.Elizabeth_I 3.99 87 Elizabeth I brings to vivid life the golden age of sixteenth-century England and the uniquely fascinating monarch who presided over it. A woman of intellect and presence, Elizabeth was the object of extravagant adoration by her contemporaries. She firmly believed in the divine providence of her sovereignty and exercised supreme authority over the intrigue-laden Tudor court and Elizabethan England at large. Brilliant, mercurial, seductive, and maddening, an inspiration to artists and adventurers and the subject of vicious speculation over her choice not to marry, Elizabeth became the most powerful ruler of her time. Anne Somerset has immortalized her in this splendidly illuminating account.]]> 71118 3.75 193 22 1991 123541 0312330170 9780312330170 7 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123541.The_Affair_of_the_Poisons_Murder_Infanticide_and_Satanism_at_the_Court_of_Louis_XIV 3.37 38 In 1676, a seemingly devoted daughter and wife, Madame de Brinvilliers, shocked all of France with the heinous murder of her father and brothers. Furious that the family disapproved of her taking a lover, she and her scurrilous paramour poisoned them out of a desire for revenge and greed for her anticipated inheritance. The ensuing scandal, skillfully recounted by noted British historian Somerset (Elizabeth I), inflamed the nation's fears that the decadent nobles at the Sun King's court were caught up in a clandestine world of sex, witchcraft and murder. Every untimely death and peculiar illness, including Louis XIV's chronic vapors, suddenly appeared to be the nefarious work of an unwholesome network of princesses, dukes and fortunetellers. As panic ballooned, even the king's mistress, Mme de Montespan, fell under suspicion (and was eventually banished from the king's bed), and many of France's most distinguished personages were sent to trial, jail and, in several cases, the scaffold. Somerset reconstructs this macabre history from surviving public documents, enlivened with contemporary gossip and wit from letters between the French elite. Her arch prose sometimes stalls amid the intricacies of myriad minor characters' histories, but overall, she offers an intelligent review of a darkly fascinating affair. 8 pages of color illus. not seen by PW.
]]> 71118 3.75 193 22 2003 123516 0753801981 9780753801987 4 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171854024m/123516.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171854024s/123516.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123516.Unnatural_Murder_Poison_at_the_Court_of_James_I 3.43 23 71118 3.75 193 22 1997 123520 0753819872 9780753819876 2 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171854032m/123520.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171854032s/123520.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123520.Ladies_in_Waiting_From_the_Tudors_to_the_Present_Day 3.64 11
"...provides a wealth of juicy anecdotal material..."--The New York Times
</div>]]> 71118 3.75 193 22 1984 7114751 0641810784 9780641810787 0 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7114751-the-affair-of-the-poisons 0.0 0 71118 3.75 193 22 2007 123519 0297832255 9780297832256 0 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171854025m/123519.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171854025s/123519.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123519.The_Life_and_Times_of_William_IV 0.0 0 71118 3.75 193 22 1981 1364864 0785817859 9780785817857 0 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1183012871m/1364864.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1183012871s/1364864.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1364864.Women_Women_in_History 0.0 0 Elizabeth the Great - Elizabeth Jenkins
Cleopatra - Michael Grant
Lucrezia Borgia - Maria Belloncia
Harriette Wilson's Memoirs: The Greatest Courtesan of Her Age, Edited and Introduced by Lesley Blanch
Unnatural Murder: Poison at the Court of James I - Anne Somerset
Mary Tudor: The Spanish Tudor by H.F.M. Prescott]]> 219994 3.39 33 9 125026 3.68 56 14 71118 3.75 193 22 310707 3.66 29 10 161865 3.86 85 17 31375 3.64 570 88 84019 3.60 48 8 361277 3.00 1 1 2003