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Books : Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and His Scandalous Duchess
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Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and His Scandalous Duchess by: Alison Weir List Price: £8.99 CD-Charts Price: £6.29 You Save: £2.70 (30%)Prices subject to change. |
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Binding: Paperback EAN: 9780712641975 ISBN: 0712641971 Label: Vintage Manufacturer: Vintage Number Of Pages: 384 Publication Date: August 07, 2008 Publisher: Vintage Studio: Vintage Sales Rank: 2839 Related Items:
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
 Rating: - Finally, a book that lives up to the subject herself...Katherine Swynford is a bit of enigma. She's arguably one of the most important figures in British history; she's the ancestress of every monarch since Edward IV, no less than five US presidents and Winston Churchill, among others; and yet most people, if they know of her at all, have only heard of her because of an historical romance, Anya Seton's Katherine. That's largely because so little is known of her, and Alison Weir does a good job piecing together what few fragments of information can be found about her. It's clear she has an affection for her subject, which I always like to see in biography. It may not be entirely unbiased, but I hate reading biographies written by people who clearly have an axe to grind or preconceived conceptions. ... Read More: Rating: - (3.5 stars): Insightful, but with a few problemsLike Alison Weir, I was first introduced to the story of Katherine Swynford through Anya Seton's romanticized 1954 novel, Katherine. Weir's biography is a pretty comprehensive look at this enigmatic, lesser-known medieval woman. I have a love-hate relationship with Weir's books: I loved The Six Wives of Henry VIII; liked Mary Queen of Scots: And the Murder of Lord Darnley, and Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England; but detested Isabella: She-Wolf of France, Queen of England and Innocent Traitor (Weir doesn't do fiction all that well). I put Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and his Scandalous Duchess in the "like somewhat" category. Katherine Swynford was born Katherine de Roet in 1350, ... Read More: Rating:  - if the information isnt there don't write itHaving read most of Alison Weir's historical works [which i would give 5 stars to] I have to say that this one is a real miss. Her writing style, usually so fluid, just did not flow for me in this book; she is severely hampered by the lack of accurate historical information available on her subject and i found the endless supposition made for a very trying read. Rating: - Absorbing as ever but difficult to get a real feel for the main subjectAbsorbing and well researched as ever, but, due to the paucity of available information on its subject, this reads in many places more like a biography of John of Gaunt, as suggested by the book's subtitle. It does give a good feel for 14th century and life and mores, though. Annoyingly, the details/dates in the family trees at the back sometimes contradict the main text. Rating: - Fascinating story stitched together from very little clothAlthough Weir has written historical biographies of women who were intrinsically interesting -- Eleanor of Acquitaine and Isabella (the She Wolf) of France -- I have always found them a little dry. It's surprisingly, then, that her most lively and readable book so far should be about a woman about whom so little is known. We can conjecture who Katherine de Roet's father was but the identity of her mother remains unknown; we cannot be sure how many children she bore, assuming that some died young, as was almost inevitable; Weir makes silly statements such as 'Katherine may well have been there that day but there is no evidence of it' a little too often. Even so, the character of Katherine shines through, the first royal mistress ... Read More: |
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