Alfred the Great: The King and His England (Phoenix Books) [Paperback]

Eleanor Shipley Duckett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1958 | ISBN-10: 0226167798 | ISBN-13: 978-0226167794

Filled with drama and action, here is the story of the ninth-century life and times of Alfred—warrior, conqueror, lawmaker, scholar, and the only king whom England has ever called "The Great." Based on up-to-date information on ninth-century history, geography, philosophy, literature, and social life, it vividly presents exciting views of Alfred in every stage of his long career and leaves the reader with a sharply-etched picture of the world of the Middle Ages.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Eleanor Shipley Duckett was for many years professor of classics at Smith College. Her many books include The Gateway to the Middle Ages, Anglo-Saxon Saints and Scholars, Alcuin: Friend of Charlemagne, and Saint Dunstan of Canterbury.

Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (October 15, 1958)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226167798
• ISBN-13: 978-0226167794
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,008,586 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Duckett's book makes this ancient king three-dimentional., October 9, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Brea, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Alfred the Great: The King and His England (Phoenix Books) (Paperback)

This book is outstanding. It draw a vibrant picture of a king whose life is otherwise obscured by the mists of time. Duckett presents a picture of a man who is simultaneously legendary and very human. This book is a wonderful choice for anyone interested in medieval times or the roots of British culture. Duckett's writing style is clean and consice, free of the usual scholarly jargon. It is a must for any student of history, amature or professional.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A useful but limited narrative, September 11, 2008

By 

Mark Klobas (Tempe, AZ, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Alfred the Great: The King and His England (Phoenix Books) (Paperback)

Eleanor Shipley Duckett's biography is a useful introduction to Alfred the Great, the Wessex monarch who effectively created the kingdom of England. She begins with a description of the politics of ninth-century England, a world of maneuvering between regional kingdoms and invading Viking armies. It was in this dangerous and fluid environment that a young Alfred came of age, watching his father and two elder brothers deal with the threats Wessex faced before gaining the throne at the age of 22. From here her focus is on his struggles against the Danes, though other chapters also address his kingdom, his education, and his years after his many martial triumphs.

While enlightening, the book suffers from an excessive focus on narrative. As readable as Duckett's prose is, Her focus on recounting the chronological development of events too frequently comes at the cost of a clear understanding of Alfred's character and the significance of the developments of his life. Readers wanting to familiarize themselves with the basic details of Alfred's life will find this a useful and enjoyable book, but those seeking a more comprehensive analysis of the great Anglo-Saxon king would be better served by Richard Abels's more recent Alfred the Great: War, Culture and Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England (The Medieval World).

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great biography for a great figure in history, December 31, 2006

By 

Brian Hawkinson (San Jose, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Alfred the Great: The King and His England (Phoenix Books) (Paperback)

Duckett's biography of King Alfred is an enjoyable and interesting read. We are drawn a picture of Alfred that shows how great a king he was to overcome the Danes from what little he had left. Duckett takes us from when he was a boy to his death with a fluid grace not easily found in biographers and their writings. Additionally, Duckett does well in interpreting the many stories and legends and presenting them in a way to give a real picture of Alfred, one of what really happened and one of what the stories and legends of the time thought of him. Her short commentaries of the travails that befell the Continent at the hands of the Vikings added a lot of insight and perspective as well.

There did seem to be two chapters out of place. King Alfred and His Earlier Translations and Later Translations. Both, it would seem, are important to King Alfred's life since he devoted much of it to translating texts into his native tongue. But analyzing the meaning of the books as well as the lives of those author's whose books Alfred translated did nothing more than take up space and waste time. Granted, it is important and would have been a great appendix, but it didn't seem to fit into the style of biography that Duckett wrote.

I, too, as Duckett mentioned at the end, would have liked to have seen some of Alfred's flaws interspersed with his attributes. But this isn't something that one can find easily, leaving us relying on what is available, notably Asser's rendition of Alfred. That being said I would definitely recommend this biography to everyone. If it weren't for the two chapters on translation I would have rated this a five star.

4 stars.