Elizabeth I [Paperback]

David Loades (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1852853042 | ISBN-13: 978-1852853044 | Publication Date: March 1, 2003

Elizabeth I, who reigned over Shakespeare’s England and defeated the Spanish Armada, is familiar both from her portraits and as Gloriana, the Virgin Queen. Yet the reality of her character and her personal attitudes are harder to detect behind the public mask. Elizabeth I, a major biography by a leading Tudor expert to mark the 400th anniversary of her death in 1603, looks in detail behind the public life at the private woman. It treats at length her early years and examines her actions and policies as queen. David Loades’s biography brings out her remarkable talents and unique achievements.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This year is the four-hundredth anniversary of the death of Elizabeth I, and this timely and engrossing biography is a worthy tribute to the "Virgin Queen." Previous biographies devote as much space to the Elizabethan epoch as they do to the personal story of Elizabeth. Loades, emeritus professor of history at the University of Bangor in Wales, has chosen to emphasize the development of Elizabeth's personal traits, loves, hopes, and fears from infancy to death. Of course, the great events of the sixteenth century inevitably intrude upon her personal story, but it is Elizabeth that remains at the center of this riveting saga. As Loades illustrates, she was born and reared within a courtly life that bred insecurity; for all of her later strength and determination as a monarch, it appears that insecurity never left her consciousness. Loades portrays Elizabeth the queen as dynamic, yet sometimes frustratingly inconsistent. She could be vindictive and petulant, but her charisma and her ability to inspire genuine devotion are made crystal clear. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"...he is able to write a scholarly biography as if it were a popular history."-Royal Book News
"...a worthy tribute to the 'Virgin Queen'...an outstanding biography."--Jay Freeman, Booklist

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 450 pages
• Publisher: Hambledon Continuum (March 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852853042
• ISBN-13: 978-1852853044
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,987,013 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting View on Elizabeth's Reign and Life, April 5, 2005

By 

Emma Brooklyn - See all my reviews

This review is from: Elizabeth I (Paperback)

Elizabeth I is, perhaps, the English monarch that has caught the interest of more people than any other British ruler has before. David Loades has managed to write a detailed record of her reign and life that covers not only the facts, but also presents and analyzes the many hypotheses that historians have come up with over years of research.

The opening chapter of the book details the circumstances of Elizabeth's birth and goes on to explain how she eventually was recognized as the rightful heir to the throne. The following four chapters describe the events of her rise to power, and the middle section covers her forty-year reign. The final chapter examines the reasons for Elizabeth's success.

The book is written in a very analytical manner, especially on Elizabeth's motives for the actions she took as queen of England. It also provides a substantial amount of background information on other important figures, such as Henry VIII, Mary, and Catherine.

On the whole, David Loades' biography is a thorough and fascinating read for those who want to delve into the intriguing story of Elizabeth I.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good read, August 20, 2010

By 

Charles Poncet (Geneva Switzerland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Elizabeth I (Paperback)

David Loades' intelligent biography of Elizabeth I is a pleasure to read. An obviously erudite historian of the Tudor period he never tries to impress the reader with heavy going prose but his book is remarkably well written and should be read by anyone with an interest in the period. He starts with the stages in Elizabeth's life when she was the King's daugther, then the King's sister and then the New Queen, moving on through the French and Netherlands episodes to the war with Spain and then to the final years. There are times when one wishes he would have written more on some of the events he narrates and it is probably advisable to have a general idea of who was who at the time in order to fully enjoy the story. Some of the psychological interpretations he puts forward may or may not reflect what actually happened but they too are a pleasure to read. The book has - but that is not the author's faults - the curse of the modern world, namely the footnotes at the end instead of conveniently at the bottom of the page, so the reader interested in seeing what are the sources quoted has to engage in an exasperating gymnastic to keep the page he is reading whilst fingering to the end to look up the footnote. Readers should unite and demand that editors put an end to this abominable practice !