Book Description
From Athens in the time of the Emperor Hadrian to a bird's-eye view of the majestic dome of London's St. Paul's Cathedral; from the lush Northamptonshire countryside to rugged alpine passes, here is a magnificent assemblage of town and country scenes. Exquisitely rendered, atmospheric, and possessed of photo-like realism.
Book Description
As part of the AHT series, the airfields and interest in this book are concentrated in a particular area - in this case Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire.
Constituted as the lst Bombardment Division on 30 August 1943 the unit was activated at Brampton Grange, Huntingdon on 13 September 1943. It was assigned to the Eighth Air Force and redesignated lst Air Division in December 1944. The division served in combat in the European theater of Operations from September 1943 until April 1945.
All squadrons within the division flew the long-distance Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber on raids into occupied Europe and Germany. There were forty-eight squadrons in the division based at Bassingbourn, Ridgewell, Nuthamstead, Podington, Chelveston, Thurleigh, Molesworth, Kimbolten, Grafton Underwood, Polebrook, Deenethorpe and Glatton.
As part of the AHT series, the airfields and interest in this book are concentrated in a particular area - in this case Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire.
Constituted as the lst Bombardment Division on 30 August 1943 the unit was activated at Brampton Grange, Huntingdon on 13 September 1943. It was assigned to the Eighth Air Force and redesignated lst Air Division in December 1944. The division served in combat in the European theater of Operations from September 1943 until April 1945.
All squadrons within the division flew the long-distance Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber on raids into occupied Europe and Germany. There were forty-eight squadrons in the division based at Bassingbourn, Ridgewell, Nuthamstead, Podington, Chelveston, Thurleigh, Molesworth, Kimbolten, Grafton Underwood, Polebrook, Deenethorpe and Glatton.
Book Description
In 1645 the fate of the British monarchy hung in the balance as the Royalist Army under King Charles I fought the Parliamentarian Army for control of the country. In this book Martin Marix Evans gives a vivid account of the pivotal battle of Naseby. He introduces the origins of the campaign and explores the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing armies, including the famous New Model Army. Dramatic and fast-paced first-hand accounts tell how the fighting unfolded on that fateful day. Featuring strategic maps and new information regarding the troops and battlefield, the author uses his unparalleled knowledge of the terrain, as well as archaeological evidence, to piece together a remarkable blow-by-blow account of the battle that lost the King his throne.
Customer Reviews:
A fine pick for military libraries specializing in ancient battles........2007-09-03
Martin Marix Evans' NASEBY 1645: THE TRIUMPH OF THE NEW MODEL ARMY uses first-hand accounts to chart a 1645 battle at Naseby, exploring the origins of the battle, strategies on both sides, and the emergence of lasting tactics. Archaeological and documentary evidence pieces together the battles in a fine pick for military libraries specializing in ancient battles.
Fighting for Intolerance, Military Dictatorship and the Right to Murder Camp Followers.......2007-08-16
In modern England, the victory of the Parliamentary army led by Sir Thomas Fairfax over the Royalist Army of King Charles I is viewed as the decisive moment of the English Civil War. The author of Naseby 1645, Martin Marix Evans, certainly has a good command of his subject but his ability to convey his meaning is clouded by a meandering writing style (he does not even get to the opening of the battle until page 62, two-thirds of the way through the volume!) and an over-use of period first-person accounts. Indeed, towards the end of the volume, the author seems content to string together one account after another and let them do most of the narration. I'm also a bit concerned about the balance in this volume - the author clearly favors the Parliamentarians and calls Cromwell, "one of the greatest generals that Britain has ever produced." While Naseby 1645 is depicted in this volume as "the triumph of the New Model Army" there is no mention that by creating a standing professional army, Parliament created a potential tool for oppression by a dictator such as Cromwell.
Naseby 1645 begins with a short introduction that details the military situation in England at this phase of the Civil War and military centers of power. No information on demographics, manpower potential or finances is provided, which means that there is no real comparative aspect beyond territory under control. The author tries to cram 27 capsule biographies into the Opposing Commanders section, which reduces most of them to just names and dates. Oddly, the author lists a Colonel Rainsborough as possibly born in Massachusetts around 1610 - is he unaware that there were no English settlers there until 1620? The section on Opposing Armies is probably the best written and most lucid part of this volume, with the main emphasis on infantry and cavalry. The Order of Battle is adequate. Oddly, there is no mention of how much artillery was in the trains of either army, although the author later says that the loss of weaponry at Naseby crippled the Royalist Army. The sections on Opposing plans is laughable and at one point, the author says, "in early May neither side had a clear strategic objective and both were content to divide their forces to pursue small actions at unrelated locations." Plan? There ain't no plan! Once the campaign narrative begins, the author spends an interminable 24 pages (one-quarter of the volume) with will-nilly preliminaries before he actually gets to the battle. For most readers of a short volume, this is a major turn-off.
The graphic quality of Naseby 1645 seems a bit less than most Osprey campaign titles. It has only four 2-D Maps (territory and major towns controlled in early 1645; principal troop movements April to early June 1645; the marches after the fall of Leicester to 13 June; the battle area with troop movements up to the start of the fight) and three 3-D BEV maps (the Royalist attack, the Royalist retreat, the last stand). The 2-D maps have no legends with specific incidents indicated - unlike most Osprey campaign titles - which makes it more difficult to trace the early phases of the campaign. Despite all the authors says about the steep and difficult nature of the terrain, none of this is conveyed by the 3-D maps, which make the battlefield seem almost flat. The two battle scenes by Graham Turner (Okey's dragoons, Parliamentary troops looting the baggage camp and abusing camp followers) add almost nothing to the volume and readers should note that neither shows Royalist troops. There are also a number of photo plates in here - on rolling the edge of a cheek piece, stepping, etc that really didn't add anything to a campaign narrative and belong on a Warrior or Elite-series title. On the other hand, the author does provide a decent bibliography and he has clearly researched this subject carefully.
Overall, this book is celebratory about the Parliamentary victory and seems eager to consign the Royalist cause to the ash-bin of history. The fact that the Royalists were fighting for a more tolerant political entity in the United Kingdom (a kinder, gentler Empire?) and that Cromwell was a religious-bigoted thug willing to murder anyone who got in his way doesn't seem to register with this author. A military solution to the Civil War only opened the door to oppression by Cromwell, who now had no opposition to impede his plans for a Britain cleansed of "popish influence." Perhaps he should have included an Irish quote or two, presenting what they thought about Britain's "greatest general."
End of the Charles I and his Civil War.......2007-07-21
I found this Osprey Campaign book on campaign and battle of Naseby to be pretty well written and researchd. In 93 pages, the author managed to clearly summarized what happened in 1645 when King Charles I and his army was totally defeated by Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell with their New Model Army. This campaign and battle decided the fate of Charles I and the war itself.
The book take on the familiar Osprey format that gives that summarized the background to the campaign, tidbits on the leaders, organization and tactics of the each army and finally into the campaign and battle. Its well supported by strategic maps - which really explained the strategic cluelessness of the royal forces. The battle maps are also quite good in giving a clear understanding of the battle. The illustrations and photographs - many of the actual battlefield also were very helpful. The narrative was peppered with many first hand accounts and it was pretty well done. Its pretty obvious that the author have a good command of the the subject matter and the actual terrain that the battle was fought on. I think I read somewhere that the author is from that part of England.
If there is a weakness, I thought that perhaps the author didn't go into what made the New Model Army so special and what this battle did to make that army so dominate during the next ten years under Oliver Cromwell. Of course, I am willing to understand that there is page restriction in this series. Graham Turner's illustrations were okay but not great. Surely he could have drawn a better subject matter then bunch of female Irish camp followers being mistreated by Parlimentary forces after the battle as he did in this book.
Overall, this book come well recommended by me. This is one of these great English battles very few Americans knows anything about (unless you watched that misleading but entertaining movie, Cromwell) and this book should give anyone a good introduction to one of the most important battles ever fought on the British Isles.
Amazon.com
This account of Althorp, his family seat, by Charles, the ninth earl Spencer, only scratches the surface of its 500-year history. Nevertheless, whether he is describing the sleepless nights of his childhood, the ticking of clocks "always ... too subtle a sound, getting absorbed in the oak of the floorboards and the fabric of the tapestries," or appraising the forbidding character of his grandfather, the "Curator Earl," Spencer casts a candid, evocative light on his subject.
Indeed, Spencer's own efforts on the estate have been considerable. First comes the business of repairing the predations of his "short-termist stepmother," Raine, the countess of Dartmouth, who has laid down wall-to-wall oatmeal carpet in a 115-foot-long Tudor picture gallery. Now comes the death and burial on the estate of his sister, Diana, the princess of Wales. That Charles must now curate the family home as a site of global mourning is a trial quite the equal of anything the estate has ever faced.
Subtitled "The Story of an English House," the book has a structure, dividing the subject into buildings, grounds, family history, and collections, that is entirely conventional. Yet Spencer surprises by packing in many details about the social and political vicissitudes that shaped his family's wealth and taste. In doing so, he eschews his grandfather's regrettable elitism, while losing none of the old man's dedication to the family's heritage. Like all good introductions, this book suggests a world and time far exceeding its little compass. --Simon Ings
Book Description
The great house and grounds of Althorp in Northamptonshire have been home to the Spencer family for nearly 500 years. They first leased farm land in the area of grazing in 1486, and in 1508 Sir John Spencer acquired the 300-acre estate on which he built the first house. Since then, Spencers have lived and died at Althorp for twenty generations, and the Park has now taken on an added significance as the burial place of the most loved princess of the twentieth century.
Charles Spencer, who became the ninth Earl in 1992, has a deep love and knowledge of the house, reflected in the fact that he acted as a guide there when he was just twelve years old and in the tremendous redocorative work he has undertaken in recent years to restore it to its former glories. In 1998 there was further major work with the adapting of the quite beautiful Stable Block--once home to 100 horses and forty grooms--into a center for visitors incorporating an exhibition celebrating the life of Diana.
Earl Spencer has written a fascinating account of the house that combines the details of art and architecture (Althorp has one of the greatest private art collections in the country, including paintings by Van Dyck, Rubens, Reynolds, Stubbs and Gainsborough) with a personal appreciation of all its qualities. He also provides a first-hand description of the many changes that have occurred in recent years. With splendid photography, some of it from Althorp's archives and some of it specially commissioned, this new book offers the perfect guide to one of England's greatest houses.
Customer Reviews:
Lovely to look at - but without Diana...........2000-12-13
I have to admit I probably would have only been vaguely interested in The Story of Althorp had it not been for the Diana, Princess of Wales Factor. I still harbour some curiosity about her childhood and background. Funnily though Charles Spencer, Diana's brother who is the author of this book, points out early on that their were actually quite old (although still children) when they moved there - the Earl Spencer didn't inherit it from his father until quite late in the piece.
I didn't pick it up solely for Diana though - This was home to one of the most interesting families in the period that I am extremely interested in. The First Earl Spencer and his wife (eighteenth century) had two infamous daughters. Their eldest daughter, Georgiana born in the late 1750's who later married the 5th Duke of Devonshire She has been the subject of numerous biographies on her life. The second daughter led a quieter but only slightly less fascinating life - that was Henrietta who married Lord Bessborough. Henrietta's own daughter was the shocking Lady Caroline Lamb. So all in all this house has a wonderful coterie of historical 'ghosts' knocking around in its archives. All good material for Spencer to draw on - and he does.
Unlike a previous reviewer of this book I don't have any problems with the text and illustrations - the hanging of the paintings (the reviewer saw them turning up in different rooms) is fully explained in the text and it is easy to see which are the before photos and which are the after ones. This includes an explanation and reference in the text to which photo is the dining room before it was turned into the dining room.
What I found most interesting about this book was that it was more than just a history of the people who lived in the house, it was actually a history of the house. Of the changes which had been made over time, walls being knocked out, cladding put on, rooms covered over - all the things which happen to a stately home over 300 years of existence - and the effects which it has on the building.
Spencer is very personal in his writing, I don't think he lacks for self-confidence anyway and although it didn't detract from the book at times I found myself smiling and wondering did he really think he would ever fail?
On his step-mother, Raine. Well it has never been a secret the feelings that her step-children had for her. Given some of the things which have come out in the past I think he was remarkably restrained in limiting himself to some pithy statements on her handling of the design of the house - which I have to say seeing the photos of the rooms she decorated - I am in full agreement with him.
Still while I enjoyed the book immensely, and would recommend anyone with an interest in things English to read this book, it doesn't rate as one that I would keep on my shelves. There are books more specifically in my particular area of interest - Georgian House Style - a recent good one I read was by Henrietta Spencer Churchill which is also on Amazon.
Althorp: The Story of An English House.......2000-09-13
This history book of Althorp (pronounced Awltrupp - per the second chapter) is the kind you would expect to see at the house's giftshop. The publication date is 1998, but the thoughtful, researched text suggests that the Earl was probably writing the book before Diana's death.
The text describes the evolution of the house and grounds as they have passed from each generation, with the final chapter explaining the design of Diana's memorial. However, there is very little about Diana in the remainder of the book. Where she is mentioned, it is often but a sentence, as with this description of the family Bible: "...Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough's family Bible, which lists every member of the Spencer family after her, naming their date of birth, date and place of christening, godparents, date and place of marriage, spouse, children and date of death. I recently had to bring it up to date."
The book's pictures are of rooms on the ground and first floors (first and second floors in American), valued paintings, other art objects and the grounds. The Earl redecorated Althorp after inheriting it in 1992. I think his style is lovely. The house looks livable and the grouping of paintings, which he attributes to Edward Bulmer, is as special as the Earl describes.
However, it is with the pictures that I find a fault with the book. Under scrutiny, I noticed that some furnishings are in more that one room. Dated captions may have helped with this: Sir Joshua Reynolds' portrait of Georgiana, Countess Spencer with her daughter Lady Georgiana, is seen hanging in the Marlborough Room as a drawing room (page 144), while it is also seen hanging in the South Drawing Room on page 11 (decorated by the Earl) and the South Drawing Room on page 128 (decorated by Raine). We know the Earl made the Marlborough Room a dining room. So what is the time period of the room on page 144?
The treatment of Raine, the Earl's former stepmother, is the book's other fault. The Earl has used this as an opportunity to criticize her, her decorating, and even her servants. He describes Raine among "short-termist stepmothers [who] have made massive inroads into once secure inheritances." The pictures of her decorating of Althorp are the most awful pictures in the book: the chapel used as a storage area ("never patient in those days with things Christian"), a library with little furniture, the South Drawing Room in poor light.
The Earl's criticisms do not seem to fit in this book when the prior 100 pages describe how generations of Spencers have sold art and land to maintain Althorp. The Earl himself rents out Althorp for corporate business entertaining.
(Raine's decorating was featured in an article in the January 1991 Architectural Digest. Yes, she used too much gilding; her style was that of an older woman. But her furnished library really does not look much different from the Earl's and the South Drawing Room is photographed in kinder light.)
However, these two faults, and the lack of a map of the grounds, did not stop me from enjoying the book. I look forward to seeing if the Earl's latest book, The Spencers: A Personal History of An English Family, is up to the writing standard he has established here.
Althorp, The Story of an English House.......2000-03-16
This is a wonderful book! In particular enjoyed the way that Charles Spencer brought his ancestors "to life." He gave some very personal and fascinating ancedotes about his ancestors.
The pictures of Althorp were absolutely beautiful, and he went into great detail explaining the history of the contents of the rooms and the history that took place in them.
Charles Spencer stated that he was afraid, at one point, he would not make his mark on Althorp. He certainly has made a significant mark for the better. It is amazing what he has done in such a short period of time.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a great read. It is entertaining, funny, informative, creative and fascinating.
Althorp, great history.......1999-06-30
That's it, I'm going to be a history major. I loved this book. Who says you can't write history in the first person? I laughed, I cried, I could relate to the author at times. I too love fine houses. I found it most amusing, all the tales he told about selling furnishings just to keep the house. I mean this book is part history, part autobiography, and it reminds us all of the bond we have with our house, our ancestors, our land, and the pictures we hang on the wall. I highly recommend it.
A great book and a real pleasure to read........1999-04-23
This book is filled with historical facts and alot of pictures. Earl Spencer gives a witty and factual account of "Althorp" over the centuries. His knowledge of the former Earls and what they each contributed to the house during their lifetimes, make a great read. The family art collection is unbelievable a couple of his relatives were painted by Gainsboro himself.
Average customer rating:
- A Great Start on Celtic Law
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A Guide to Early Irish Law (Publications of the Northamptonshire Record Society,)
Fergus Kelly
Manufacturer: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
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A Great Start on Celtic Law.......1998-07-02
This book is great for anyone interested in learning about the history and tradition of Celtic Law. A great addition to any Celtic Library.
Amazon.com
That this book would have been less likely without a certain English princess is beyond dispute. Even Charles Spencer won't deny the influence famous sister had in keeping the family image prominent in both the public eye and the marketplace, whether that means books or Althorp guided tours. Yet he avoids capitalizing on Diana's name, and in the process creates a lively history of a powerful family in an age when, as Spencer writes, "the aristocracy ... is most often perceived as an anachronism." The Spencers first came to the fore in the 15th and 16th centuries. Prosperous Northamptonshire sheep farmers who spun wool into gold, their influence in both politics and the military grew steadily until no Cabinet was complete without a Spencer. Their family tree in subsequent centuries featured a few common themes, including patronage of the arts, a liberal Whig sensibility, books and bookmakers, and sons who chose between the ecclesiastical cloth and the gaming cloth. But they were perhaps most interesting for their women, strong-willed, resolute characters like Sarah Marlborough, Lavinia Spencer, and Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. While the Spencer men held power, their wives wielded it. And what of the most famous female Spencer of all, Diana? The author wisely deals with her in less than a paragraph, aware of the glut of words already used up on her life. Unfortunately such discipline doesn't extend to the publishers, who include a picture of her on the book's cover and say that its contents put her life into "vivid context." This is to do an injustice to her brother's cause, for his mix of historical research and family legends makes for a readable account in its own right, enlivened rather than spoiled by his engaging and distinctively Spencerian voice. --David Vincent
Book Description
Best known in recent history for Lady Diana Spencer, who became the Princess of Wales when she married Prince Charles in 1981, the Spencer family has had close ties to English royalty for at least 500 years. Indeed, Diana's grandfather claimed that "the word Spencer derives from the Norman word for Steward, or Head of Household: 'Despenser,'" and that their ancestor was steward to the household of William the Conqueror in 1066. While historians have debated both sides of this particular family legend, it is indisputable that from the early 16th century Diana's forebears had moved beyond their origins as sheep farmers to forge intimate connections with the English court.
In addition to generations of Spencer barons, earls, and dukes, there were politicians and poets, courtiers and clerics, soldiers and scoundrels. There was an earlier Lady Diana Spencer, who nearly married the Prince of Wales in 1730 and who, like the modern Diana, died tragically young. Sir Winston Churchill was a Spencer; for generations his family name was hyphenated as Spencer-Churchill. The history of the family is alive with many other fascinating characters: from Henry Spencer, who gave Charles I the astonishing sum of £10,000 on the eve of the Civil War; through the scandalous society beauty Georgiana Devonshire, daughter of the first Countess Spencer, who sold her kisses for votes in favor of Charles James Fox; to George John, the Second Earl, owner of the greatest private library in Europe and patron of Horatio Nelson.
In many ways the story of the Spencer family is really the story of England-or at least of the English aristocracy. Using archives and documents previously unavailable and incorporating his personal experiences of the family, Charles Spencer offers a fascinating, rich, and illuminating social history.
Customer Reviews:
First-rate and highly readable dynastic history.......2005-07-31
The author, brother of the late Princess of Wales, succeeded to the title at his father's death in 1992. The 9th earl has an Oxford degree in modern history and a refreshingly unprotective attitude toward his own forebears (the probable descendants of Tudor sheep-farmers with no claim to a connection with the Le Despensers of Normandy, whatever family tradition says), who included some very iffy characters as well as art patrons, active politicians, and military heroes. Robert, the first Baron Spencer, was perhaps the wealthiest man in England. Henry Spencer, the first earl of Sunderland, gave Charles I the sum of £10,000 on the eve of the Civil War, then died on the battlefield, while his ruthless and over-ambitious son became politically influential but was widely disliked. Georgiana, the celebrated duchess of Devonshire in the 18th century, was a Spencer, but her sister, Lady Caroline Lamb, was Byron's mistress. George John, the second earl, was the patron of Horatio Nelson and built the largest private library in Europe -- but nearly bankrupted his family in the process. Sir Winston Churchill was a Spencer, too. The fifth earl was Viceroy of Ireland and served often in Gladstone's cabinet, but never succeeded in his ambition to become Prime Minister. (Apparently, the less said about the present earl's parents and step-parents, the better; the tabloids pretty much own that subject.) And through the centuries, the family has amassed and managed and conserved its wealth, built fine homes, collected fine art (and sat for Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Sargent), and gone about its business. While the history is anecdotal, not academic (although there's a good selected bibliography), this is a recommended treatment of one of the less-famous (until Diana) titled families in Britain. I'm also pleased to say that, despite her brother's well-publicized disapproval of the Windsors, the late princess gets only a brief mention at the end of the book; no tabloidism here. Finally, previous reviewers who complained about the author's claim of descent from the Despensers (actually, he dismisses any such family myth) and his lack of sources (there's quite a good bibliography) must not have read the same book I did. (Maybe the recent Baylor grad should have gone through the master's program with me at UT. . . .)
A fascinating history of an English aristocratic family.......2003-03-27
The Spencers is without a doubt one of the best books I have read to date. Written by the Ninth Earl Spencer, Charles, this book provides an illuminating glimpse into the history of his and his late sister Diana's antecedents that goes all the way back to the 11th century and one Robert Despenser, steward to William of Normandy.
The thing I like most about this book is that Earl Spencer pulls no punches with regard to the less admirable members of his family, but at the same time, he does not indulge himself in the scandalous gossip-mongering style of writing that seems to be favored by tabloid journalists and tell-all writers the world over. Instead, he gives the reader the plain, unvarnished truth, without according any special treatment to any of his family.
All in all, The Spencers is a very good and refreshingly honest look at the history of one aristocratic family, written by one of their own. I highly recommend this book for any who are interested in studying English nobility.
Interesting but self-serving book..........2002-09-12
This book is not the one to read if you want a serious, well-researched book about one of England's great aristocratic families (although hardly the greatest or the oldest or the most historic). For that, try Georgina Battiscombe's book, which has been out-of-print, although that focuses more on post-1700 Spencers.
First of all, do *not* trust the early genealogy as presented in this book. Lord Spencer clearly buys into the family history presented to his ancestors by 16th century heralds, and warmly espoused by his grandfather, the irascible but family-proud 7th Earl. It is true that the Spencers - and many others - are descended from the ancient Le Despencer family (but only through many women), and it is not true that the Spencers can claim a direct male-to-male descent from that family. [Come to think of that - the Le Despencers had such a nasty reputation in the reign of Edward II and Edward III, why would anyone want to claim a descent from them?].
The Spencers are the junior branch of the family that now holds the dukedom of Marlborough (yes, Sir Winston was a cousin), because the 1st Duke died leaving only daughters. By Act of Parliament, the present Earl Spencer is thus in remainder to the dukedom. The 1st Earl Spencer is in fact the son of the younger brother of the 3rd Duke of Marlborough who was a Spencer (his descendants changed their name to Spencer-Churchill or Churchill).
I think that a good book is possible about the history of the Spencer family, or about the more interesting women in this family. However, the Earl's book is not the place for this.
It is a pity because some of the characters are truly interesting, including Lady Lyttleton (governess to Queen Victoria's elder children). The greatest Earls Spencer - the 3rd and the 5th Earl - both died childless unfortunately. The 3rd Earl was a prominent Whig in the early 1800s. I would have liked to have seen more about the political involvement of the Spencer family over the centuries and how it waned and waxed. I would also have liked to have seen more of the earlier Spencers, including those Spencer daughters who married well (as early as the late 1500s) and thus allied this family to other more powerful families - and in doing so, raised its profile at court and in Parliament. This unfortunately is not the book for that, or for an analysis of the development of the famed art collection or the rest of the family fortune. Nor is a place where the Earl speculates seriously about the future of his family (he and his son, and an elderly uncle, are the only males in the Spencer family).
Poor scholarship.......2002-08-16
This book is a history of the Spencer family as told by a member of that family-namely Charles, 9th Earl Spencer. It should be noted that Spencer has an obvious bias when it comes to writing a book on his family, so don't trust all he says, and read the primary sources.
I read this book just a few weeks ago, and while it was an interesting read (because of the subject matter) it was a frusturating one as well (because of the lack of sources). I majored in history and recently graduated from a prestigous Southern university, and can tell you that this is not a thoroughly researched book.
There are no notes, a very slim bibliography, and Spencer deos not use references. For example he quotes from Amanda Foreman's book "Georgiana: The Duchess of Devonshire", yet he does not give a page number from where the suppossed quote comes from. This is not an isolated case.
Claiming that he got a degree in modern history from Magdalen College, Oxford (see back jacket), Spencer is already set to a higher standard than other historians-for he is Oxford trained. Magdalen College should feel embrassed by this work of Spencer's.
As for genealogists I would steer clear of this book-how can you trust someone who cannot show us his references?
Self-Serving History, But Interesting, Too.......2001-08-22
Charles Spencer is very careful to make almost no direct references to his more famous sister, Diana, in his family history "The Spencers," but her picture appears on the jacket, for marketing purposes I guess. He does make several veiled (thinly veiled) references to Diana's ancestors who similarly suffered from being misunderstood by the press and being ahead of their times. Diana was no Georgiana, let's leave it at that. The book, while free of any scholarly pretenses (there are no footnotes and the bibliography is scanty), is rife with fascinating characters, some of whom are not really related to the Spencer clan at all. For example, the Earl of Spencer devotes an entire chapter to the famous Sarah Churchill, First Duchess of Marlborough, who was merely a mother-in-law to a Spencer. She did serve the role of uniting the two families through her complicated bequests, but she is most widely known as the Power Behind the Throne to Queen Anne, and her lengthy treatment in this book is inappropriate. However, several other Spencers (most emphatically Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire) led fascinating lives, and the author tells their stories with sympathy and the occasional dash of venom or wit. This is not a book for serious historians, and it has all-too obvious agendas(slurring his step-mother Raine among them), but it whizzes through some of England's most interesting epochs and may inspire some to look deeper elsewhere.
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- A Fine Biography of Clare
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- Fabulous Portrait
- Fab
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John Clare: A Biography
Jonathan Bate
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"I Am": The Selected Poetry of John Clare
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ASIN: 0374179905 |
Book Description
The long-awaited literary biography of the supreme "poets' poet"
John Clare (1793-1864) is the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self, but until now he has never been the subject of a comprehensive literary biography.
Here at last is his full story told by the light of his voluminous work: his birth in poverty, his work as an agricultural labourer, his burgeoning promise as a writer--cultivated under the gaze of rival patrons--then his moment of fame in the company of John Keats and the toast of literary London, and finally his decline into mental illness and his last years confined in asylums. Clare's ringing voice--quick-witted, passionate, vulnerable, courageous--emerges in generous quotation from his letters, journals, autobiographical writings, and his poems, as Jonathan Bate, the celebrated scholar of Shakespeare, brings the complex man, his beloved work, and his ribald world vividly to life.
Customer Reviews:
A Fine Biography of Clare.......2006-04-26
Jonathan Bate's admirable biography of John Clare is worthy of this unique poet. There were moments while reading the first two hundred or so pages of John Clare A Biography when I began to sense I was residing in Clare's mind and footsteps which is truly a tribute to Bate's fine scholarship and narrative skills. Definitely worth reading and exploring.
Absolutely Great.......2005-02-10
This is a wonderful biography of Clare. Bate not only paints a convincing picture of this largely self-taught genius, but he also provides illuminating information about the social context in which Clare moved. His speculations concerning Clare's mental illness are also on the mark. Take your time with this book. It's an enjoyable ramble through the fields and by the end you'll have a well-rounded picture of John Clare and a greater appreciation for his work.
Fabulous Portrait.......2004-06-15
Endearing, moving and mysterious, this is as sensitive a portrait of John Clare as we are likely to get. Bate's love for his subject is obvious throughout the book, in which he succeeds so well at walking the line between adoration and accuracy. Teeming with observations such as "for Clare even a fishpond is saturated with feeling and memory," Clare's unusually intense absorption in nature is brought to light here with the kind of beauty and empathy only a fellow-writer such as Bate could achieve.
Yet despite Bate's insistence on Clare's genius (I'm quite insistent on it myself after having read the biography and skimming through the Selected Poems) he does not look away from uglier aspects of Clare's life: his infidelity and apparent spousal abuse, his alcoholism and, most of all, the ever-bewildering case of his diagnosis as a "lunatic." This is where Bate's book becomes particularly poignant, and I wish he had spent less time gossiping about Clare's wrangles with publishers and more on the man's complicated and harrowing character. For this reason I felt the book to be a bit longer than it needed to be, but perhaps I'd feel differently had the material in the last 150 pages, which deals extensively with Clare's mental illness, been fleshed-out even more. Surely accounts of Clare's occasional belief that he was Lord Byron or Jack Randall the boxer are of far more interest than how many pounds he was paid for a poem published in the London Magazine.
Nonetheless, Bate does an excellent job of avoiding the temptation to romanticize Clare's dramatic mental illness (for which, in the end, "manic-depression" seems to be the most accurate but not necessarily conclusive diagnosis. In her incredible book, Touched With Fire, Kay Redfield Jamison lists Clare's name among the poets she counted as victims of manic-depressive illness). Unlike other biographers of writers (Quentin Bell's book about Virginia Woolf comes to mind) Bate does not settle for Clare's own metaphorical explanations for his "madness." Indeed, Bate often disputes the very term "madness" and exposes it as a dated and even superstitious label. He does not so thoroughly drench the artist's mental struggles in myth and theory as to have it become the stuff of folklore. Surely it would be flattering to think of Clare as some divinely inspired mystic, but Bate's many more logical scenarios are a refreshing contrast to the "mad genius" stereotype.
While Clare attributed his madness to the day he watched a friend fall to his death from a tree as a child, Bate's more plausible suggestions include: Clare's concussion after tumbling out of a tree himself as a boy, his heavy drinking, the awful malnutrition of his diet, the tormenting stress of his perpetual poverty amid obligations to his wife and seven children, his frustrating efforts to further himself as a poet while having to beg for farm work, and "mercury-poisoning resulting from attempted treatment for syphilis." In a further example of Bate's mature handling of this particular issue, he writes that "we should not rule out the possibility that his own derangement was partially shaped by his reading about the mental suffering of other writers." Clare was terribly impressionable. However, where Bate tells us that Clare's "episodes" afflicted him only after being admitted to the aszlum as if to imply that he was bound to become psychotic after living among the mad for two decades, Jamison writes in "Touched With Fire" that "manic-depressive illness not only worsens over time, it becomes less responsive to medication the longer" it goes untreated, so it seems only logical that his condition would have worsened with age, especially since no such "treatment" as Jamison discusses was available in his day.
Compounding the reasonable possibilities Bate offers is the fact that Clare's very devotion to write poetry may have been interpreted as madness by his neighbors. Tragically, this seems to be a chief reason why he was eventually confined. As Bate says early on, "In summer he walked in the woods and fields alone, a book in his pocket . . . his love of books began to isolate him from other boys . . . the villagers found this behavior very odd: `some fancying it symptoms of lunacy.'" Even after reading the book, it is anyone's guess as to whether Clare was insane; but stories of his battles against what illness he may have suffered from as well as the ignorance, incompetence and greed of those purporting to care for him make for a rather heart-breaking read. What we can be sure of, though, is that mad or not, Clare had become more of a liability than a father or husband. "There is no evidence that he was taken to the asylum because he was `mad' in the sense of having lost consciousness of his identity . . . he was taken to the asylum because he needed better care than could be provided by his family," Bate writes.
Though he probably takes a bit too much liberty in attempting to explain nearly every one of Clare's symptoms in a more rational light, Bate's assertions about Clare's psychological temperament make for some absolutely riveting explications and commentary. "To say that he had written the works of Byron and Scott was but an extreme way of saying he had written works that he hoped might one day be regarded as the equal of" those works, he supposes. In an even farther-fetching attempt at psychoanalysis, Bate explains Clare's delusion that he was a famous boxer as a dramatization "of the fact that Clare spent his life fighting battles - for his poetry, for recognition, for survival, against his inner demons." While this is probably the point at which Bate seems more of an adoring and apologetic fan than biographer, who's to say? We will never really know what was going on inside that jewel of a mind, and considering all that was taken from the man in his life by his illness, time, or other people, maybe that secret is the one thing we can let Clare keep.
Fab.......2003-10-30
A magnificent bio of a fabulous poet. I got to page 167 or so before it occured to me to check what page I was on. When one forgets one is reading, one knows one is reading excellence.
This bio is excellence and this poet is sublime.
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John Clare, Politics and Poetry
Alan Vardy
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0333966171 |
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John Clare, Politics and Poetry challenges the traditional portrait of "poor John Clare", the helpless victim of personal and professional circumstance. Clare's career has been presented as a disaster of editorial heavy-handedness, condescension, a poor market, and conservative patronage. Yet Clare was not a passive victim. This study explores the sources of the "poor Clare"' tradition, and recovers Clare's agency, revealing a writer fully engaged in his own professional life and in the social and political questions of the day.
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This book is part of the 100 Greats series, which collects short biographies and statistics of the 100 greatest players on various sporting teams or clubs throughout their histories.
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20th Century Kettering
Tony Smith
Manufacturer: W.D.Wharton
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