07118cam a2200469 4500 240255371 TxAuBib 20140811120000.0 ||||||s2013||||||||||||||||||||||||und|u 9780307962898 030796289X B00AXIZ3FG Amazon 11507468-20c2-4992-b94b-2ce71f00cc60 OverDrive (Reserve ID) 224498 1203357 OverDrive (Product ID) TxAuBib Somerset, Anne, 1955- Queen Anne [Libby eBook] : The Politics of Passion. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2013. Format: OverDrive Adobe EPUB eBook, Filesize: 7300kB. Format: OverDrive OverDrive Read. Format: OverDrive Kindle Book. HTML:She ascended the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1702, at age thirty-seven, Britain's last Stuart monarch, and five years later united two of her realms, England and Scotland, as a sovereign state, creating the Kingdom of Great Britain. She had a history of personal misfortune, overcoming ill health (she suffered from crippling arthritis; by the time she became Queen she was a virtual invalid) and living through seventeen miscarriages, stillbirths, and premature births in seventeen years. By the end of her comparatively short twelve-year reign, Britain had emerged as a great power; the succession of outstanding victories won by her general, John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, had humbled France and laid the foundations for Britain's future naval and colonial supremacy. While the Queen's military was performing dazzling exploits on the continent, her own attention--indeed her realm--rested on a more intimate conflict: the female friendship on which her happiness had for decades depended and which became for her a source of utter torment. At the core of Anne Somerset's riveting new biography, published to great acclaim in England ("Definitive"--London Evening Standard; "Wonderfully pacy and absorbing"--Daily Mail), is a portrait of this deeply emotional, complex bond between two very different women: Queen Anne--reserved, stolid, shrewd; and Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, wife of the Queen's great general--beautiful, willful, outspoken, whose acerbic wit was equally matched by her fearsome temper. Against a fraught background--the revolution that deposed Anne's father, James II, and brought her to power . . . religious differences (she was born Protestant--her parents' conversion to Catholicism had grave implications--and she grew up so suspicious of the Roman church that she considered its doctrines "wicked and dangerous") . . . violently partisan politics (Whigs versus Tories) . . . a war with France that lasted for almost her entire reign . . . the constant threat of foreign invasion and civil war--the much-admired historian, author of Elizabeth I ("Exhilarating"--The Spectator; "Ample, stylish, eloquent"--The Washington Post Book World), tells the extraordinary story of how Sarah goaded and provoked the Queen beyond endurance, and, after the withdrawal of Anne's favor, how her replacement, Sarah's cousin, the feline Abigail Masham, became the ubiquitous royal confidante and, so Sarah whispered to growing scandal, the object of the Queen's sexual infatuation. To write this remarkably rich and passionate biography, Somerset, winner of the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, has made use of royal archives, parliamentary records, personal correspondence and previously unpublished material. Queen Anne is history on a large scale--a revelation of a centuries-overlooked monarch. From the Hardcover edition.. "A must-read for all those who love English royal history and, after three centuries of misogyny and misunderstanding, Anne Stuart has found a worthy champion in Anne Somerset. Out of this impeccably written and researched new biography emerges the portrait of a wise, loving, tolerant woman who held the reins of government in calm, capable hands. Somerset dispels the shadow cast over the last of the Stuarts by her great friend and implacable enemy, Sarah Churchill, First Duchess of Marlborough. Henceforth we will be able to speak of "Good Queen Anne" without irony or condescension. Vivat Regina!". HTML:Gillian Gill, author of We Two: Victoria and Albert, Rulers, Partners, Rivals. HTML:"We chose [Queen Anne] because of its depth, range, empathy and the fact that it is full of surprises...written by a biographer who knows how to handle political intrigue, family relations, the pathos of failed relationships and stunted lives, and the complex meanings of 'friendship' in the early eighteenth century...A riveting portrait of authority and power, and how people accustom themselves to handling it...A biography written with passion as well as judiciousness: which makes it a very worthy winner of the 2013 Elizabeth Longford Prize.". Professor Roy Foster, Chair of the Elizabeth Longford Prize. "Formidable . . . It is has taken immense patience and skill . . . to create a new and subtler image of the last of the Stuart monarchs. Anne Somerset has done a real service both to us and to her namesake.". HTML:Miranda Seymour, Sunday Times. "A meticulously crafted view from the cockpit of power . . . Queen Anne, Somerset shows, deserves fresh respect.". HTML:Clarissa Campbell Orr, Times Literary Supplement. "Sympathetic and engaging . . . Somerset brings Anne's anxious and dutiful character to life with delicacy.". HTML:Christopher Silvester, Daily Express. "Definitive . . . clearly the fullest, best and most sympathetic account of [Queen] Anne yet written.". HTML:Lucy Worsley, Evening Standard. "Fascinating and rewarding . . . in this excellent biography [Queen] Anne's reputation is reclaimed.". HTML:Aline Reed, Sunday Express. "Excellent . . . it is time to think differently about Queen Anne.". HTML:Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday. "Magisterial . . . incisive and compelling.". HTML:Martin Williams, Country Life. "Wonderfully pacy and absorbing.". HTML:John Harding, Daily Mail. Biography & Autobiography. Nonfiction. History. Media Type: eBook. Importer Version: 2014-01-08.01 Import Date: 2015-08-11 10:13:24. http://slc.lib.overdrive.com/ContentDetails.htm?ID=11507468-20c2-4992-b94b-2ce71f00cc60 https://samples.overdrive.com/queen-anne-115074?.epub-sample.overdrive.com Excerpt (Adobe EPUB eBook) https://samples.overdrive.com/queen-anne-115074?.epub-sample.overdrive.com Excerpt (Kindle Book) https://samples.overdrive.com/queen-anne-115074?.epub-sample.overdrive.com Excerpt (OverDrive Read)