The Great Pretenders: The True Stories behind Famous Historical Mysteries [Hardcover]

Jan Bondeson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2004

In this highly entertaining work, Jan Bondeson delves into the great unsolved cases of disputed identity. Did the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette die in the Temple Tower or was he one of the fellows claiming to be the dauphin after the Terror? Was Kaspar Hauser really the missing crown prince of Baden? When an eccentric duke built a tunnel complex beneath his estate, who is to say he didn't have a second life as a shopkeeper in London?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Reading Bondeson-who is drawn to sensational, even penny-dreadful material that he examines in a sober and scientific tone-is always a guilty pleasure. In his latest, Bondeson (Buried Alive; etc.) addresses historical enigmas, imposters and eccentrics in half a dozen case histories of lost heirs, secret marriages, immortal kings and mysterious simpletons. There is Kaspar Hauser, who turned up in Nuremberg in 1828 with neither identification nor, apparently, memories of his origins; his partisans still insist he was a kidnapped prince of Baden. There is the legend that grew around a certain Russian hermit, suggesting he was actually Czar Alexander I, who purportedly had faked his own death in 1825 in order to retire into religious contemplation. Bondeson relates these stories with a straight if skeptical face, often allowing them to collapse under their own convoluted contradictions. The Victorian-era courtroom antics alone are worth the price of admission when a beefy Australian butcher sues to be recognized as the meager missing heir to the baronetcy of Titchborne. Modern DNA tests have corroborated the theory that George III did not secretly beget several children with a Quaker wife named Hannah Lightfoot and that the son of Louis XVI did die in prison during the French Revolution, though literally hundreds of pretenders have turned up. Bondeson, a physician and professor at the University of Wales College of Medicine, has only cursory conclusions about why these cases (along with new variants such as Elvis and Princess Di sightings) fascinate us, but there's no question that, in Bondeson's lively retellings, they do. 20 b&w illus.
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From The New Yorker

In nineteenth-century Russia, many people believed that a certain Siberian hermit was really the late Tsar Alexander I. After the French Revolution, several men gained followings by claiming to be the surviving son of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. Bondeson, a British rheumatologist with an engaging sideline in the more sensational byways of history, sifts evidence with a keen understanding of the difficulty of establishing truth: "Kings and queens are mere mortals, but it is difficult to kill off a good story." DNA testing has felled a few hypotheses, but mysteries persist, in part, Bondeson believes, because they are bound up with larger questions of national identity. He also writes about the not-so-great pretenders: the long-lost relatives who show up just in time to contest the family fortune. These trials provided high drama in Victorian England, reaching a peak of silliness when one witness testified that Charles Dickens, between books, acted as a pimp for the eccentric Duke of Portland.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (February 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393019691
• ISBN-13: 978-0393019698
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,398,961 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History, Mystery and More, February 6, 2004

By 

Ricky Hunter (New York City, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Great Pretenders: The True Stories behind Famous Historical Mysteries (Hardcover)

The Great Pretenders is great fun, no pretending. Jan Bondeson examines the great (and the lesser great) historical mysteries of the nineteenth century, such as Kaspar Hauser, the Lost Dauphin, and monk-czar of Russia. He presents all the known evidence in a clear fashion and lays out the possible solutions relying on both modern scientific evidence, if available and applicable, and documentary evidence. The author may disappoint conspiracy buffs (they always have the internet) but this book will interest history buffs. These stories are endlessly fascinating and they add up to a marvelous evening or so of reading.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A well-writen rehash of speculation, BUT..., July 10, 2005

By 

Daiku "We do not stop playing because we grow... (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Great Pretenders: The True Stories Behind Famous Historical Mysteries (Paperback)

I've read several books by Bondeson and enjoyed them, though at times it's a bit sad having science disprove things that were fascinating possibilities. Regardless, Bondeson makes you rethink what you (and at times the entire world) have thought to be solved mysteries, most notably last year's affirmation via mitochrondial DNA that the alleged heart of the 'Lost Dauphin,' Louis Charles XVII, is indeed the boy's heart. Or is it really? Bondeson has a unique way of approaching these mysteries both scientifically and open-minded - never saying that the mysteries are solved absolutely by approaching them from every possible 'what if?' angle.

BUT, it is annoying that Bondeson spends so much time on minute possible details while simultaneously making the most stupid mistakes of what is concrete fact. For example, the Dauphin was born in 1785 and died in 1795. Any source will tell you this. Bondeson will tell you this repeatedly, as well as the obvious fact that the boy was 10-years-old when he died. Yet Bondeson then goes on to describe the first of the hundreds of pretenders and states if any of the pretenders actually had been the real Dauphin, this was the most likely possibility. The problem is that this pretender showed up in a village in 1796, when the Dauphin would have been eleven, and is described as a teenager (who in fact was later identified as being an 18-year-old runaway). At another point, when trying to explain the discrepancies of the Dauphin's crystal encased heart, Bondeson suggests that it is actually the heart of the Dauphin's older brother, who died at the age of nine, as the heart is smaller than that described in the autopsy and records of the doctor who had spirited away. Bondeson's theory is that the TWELVE-year-old Dauphin's heart would be larger.

Seriously, how hard is it to keep the most basic fact that the lost Dauphin was 10-years-old straight while theorizing with great depth the potential cause of his death and claims of the various pretenders?

I would give the book five stars if not for these types of, frankly, stupid mistakes. As it is, if it were possible, I'd give the book 3 1/2 stars for such ridiculous faults. I'd also suggest strongly that Bondeson needs to interupt his deep ruminations and check for such painfully obvious mistakes, in addition to firing his editor.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mystery or Fact, Who Can Be Sure?, May 3, 2005

By 

Betty Burks "Betty Burks" (Knoxville, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Great Pretenders: The True Stories Behind Famous Historical Mysteries (Paperback)

The most famous historical mysteries contain a large amount of contradictory evidence; most cannot be solved in actuality. Mysteries of disputed identity have ancient origins and are based on medieval folk tales. Nineteenth Century romantic history was built on these legends because the aristocracy liked mystifications and conundruns, plus their prevailing literary taste. The writer of historical mysteries presented his subject matter within the boundaries set by the traditional Gothic novel.

The Little Prince died in France after his parents, Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI had been put to death on the guillotine during the Revolution. Rumors surfaced that the Royalists had saved him, and more than a hundred 'pretenders' claimed to be the Lost Dauphin.

Other mysteries in this volume by Dr. Bondeson include a duke whose country estate had a maze of tunnels in the basement, who possibly had a double life as a furniture shopkeeper with a separate family (Emperor or hermit), Kasper Hauser in Germany, Duke of Baker Street in London, and others. Rumors about George III's bigomy were boundless.

Some of these mysteries of 'disputed identity' developed into national enigmas, based on folklore and romantic fantasy. Thus is history. He explains his summations thusly: "What is it about these tales of lost heirs, secret marriages, and immortal monarchs (who) turned into immortal mysteries (which) engage the minds of millions?" I was disappointed that he left out the case of Anastasia in Russia. I love the cover pictures of those he did write about, so true to life -- as it was back then.