Cheap Mary Queen of Scots (Book) (ANTONIA FRASER) Price

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Customer Reviews of Mary Queen of Scots

You will read about Mary's life from birth to her beheading, and the conflicts of her life. The impact of religious beliefs and the history of the monarchy.

Even though I came to this title with a bias of having seen the movie, the book still held my interest and further added detail to this historic accounting.

A truly enjoyable biography. Excellent read-historically sound!

Queen of Scots, Queen of France, Queen of Hearts
Mary Stuart, only child of James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise, is a gift to biographers through the ages, not least because her life cleaves so easily into three stages: (1) her brilliant debut in the court of the Valois and her marriage to King Francis II; (2) her journey from Paris to Scotland, where she ruled through a series of misadventures; and (3) her flight to England, where she was captured by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth, and eventually executed as a traitor at Fotheringay. Lady Antonia Fraser made her (now enormous) name in 1969 with this work - and the liveliness of her prose is often credited with a wider revival in narrative biography. What is now lost sight of is that Fraser's biography was, in many respects, revisionist in nature: not least because Fraser, herself a Catholic, was uniquely qualified to present Mary's credentials as Roman martyr, while at the same time unflinching cataloging her many personal failures. Another departure from the heroic tradition is her condemnation of 16th century Scottish nobility for the murderous rabble it truly was - especially the loathsome Bothwell. Finally, as Fraser explains at length, the trumped-up conviction and cruelly botched execution of Mary was nothing short of judicial murder. By the way, the early 1970s film starring Vanessa Redgrave, while excellent as a work of romantic history, is unconnected, and bears little resemblance to the grim contemporary environment as depicted by Fraser.

Compelling and Revealing
After having read many biographies on Elizabeth I, I decided I should now take a look at the view point of her rival, Mary. Indeed, it was eye opening.

Frasier does an excellent job at making sure that no details are left out. She takes the time to look at each side of the coin, dismissing blatant rumors and indicating was is fact and what is mere speculation. She also leaves no thread loose, making sure to add a footnote to even minor characters of interest so that the reader may know of what happened to them. Indeed, her research is thorough, and lacks a lot of the nagging questions about people and events I find that I have when I read biographies written by other writers.

Yet despite all of the heavy reading, the narrative does not lag, but is fresh and interesting.

My only complaint was the untranslated French phrases. Even with the assistance of several French-to-English dictionaries, I often had a hard time finding specific words or phrases. Yet this was a minor annoyance, and did not interefere with the quality of the work as a whole.

For those looking for a detailed and thrilling biography, I highly recommend this book.