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The Duchess
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Great narration, boring meandering story
- By Briony Rees on 31-12-18
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Mary Queen of Scots: Film Tie-In
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What a student needs for studying Mary Queen of Scots!!
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Throughly enjoyed
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Rival Queens
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Random House presents the audiobook edition of Rival Queens by Kate Williams. Elizabeth and Mary: cousins, rivals, queens. They loved each other, they hated each other - they could never escape one another. Kate Williams’ thrilling new history tells the story of Elizabeth I of England and her betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots. At the end of the Tudor era, here were two women on two thrones. But this was a man’s world, and many believed that no woman should govern. All around Elizabeth and Mary were sycophants, spies and detractors who wanted their power, their favour and their bodies. And so they became one another’s closest confidantes....
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Betrayal and exploitation
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Mary Queen of Scots
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More than 400 years after her death, Mary Queen of Scots remains one of the most romantic and controversial figures in British history. Antonia Fraser's classic biography of her won the James Tait Prize when it was first published in 1969. It became an international best-seller and was translated into nine languages.
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Really really recommended
- By Duncan on 10-12-09
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The Favourite
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Sarah Churchill, first Duchess of Marlborough, was the glamorous and controversial subject of hundreds of satires, newspaper articles and publications both during her lifetime and after her death. This biography brings Sarah Churchill's own voice, passionate and intelligent, back to life and casts a critical eye over images of the Duchess handed down through art, history and literature. Here is an unforgettable portrait of a woman who cared intensely about how we would remember her.
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Great narration, boring meandering story
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London in the Nineteenth Century
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Overall
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Performance
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Jerry White's London in the Nineteenth Century is the richest and most absorbing account of the city's greatest century by its leading expert. London in the nineteenth century was the greatest city mankind had ever seen. Its growth was stupendous. Its wealth was dazzling. Its horrors shocked the world. This was the London of Blake, Thackeray and Mayhew, of Nash, Faraday and Disraeli. Most of all it was the London of Dickens. As William Blake put it, London was 'a Human awful wonder of God'.
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Mary Queen of Scots: Film Tie-In
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- Length: 22 hrs and 55 mins
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Overall
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Who was the real Mary Queen of Scots? The most enigmatic ruler of England lived a life of incredible drama and turmoil: crowned Queen of Scotland at nine months old, and Queen of France at 16 years, she grew up in the crosshairs of Europe's political battles to become Queen Elizabeth's archrival.
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What a student needs for studying Mary Queen of Scots!!
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- By: Lucy Worsley
- Narrated by: Lucy Paterson, Lucy Worsley
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
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Overall
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Best-selling author and historian Lucy Worsley tracks a new course through Queen Victoria's life, examining how she transformed from dancing princess to the Widow of Windsor and became one of Britain's greatest monarchs along the way. Taking 24 significant days from Victoria's life, from her birth, her wedding and her coronation to her husband's death, and many more in between, allows us to see Victoria up close and personal, examining how she lived hour to hour. Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Queen Victoria's birth, this major new biography will celebrate Queen Victoria as a woman of her time, who lived an extraordinary life.
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Throughly enjoyed
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Rival Queens
- By: Kate Williams
- Narrated by: Emma Cunniffe
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Random House presents the audiobook edition of Rival Queens by Kate Williams. Elizabeth and Mary: cousins, rivals, queens. They loved each other, they hated each other - they could never escape one another. Kate Williams’ thrilling new history tells the story of Elizabeth I of England and her betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots. At the end of the Tudor era, here were two women on two thrones. But this was a man’s world, and many believed that no woman should govern. All around Elizabeth and Mary were sycophants, spies and detractors who wanted their power, their favour and their bodies. And so they became one another’s closest confidantes....
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-
Betrayal and exploitation
- By Rachel Redford on 22-10-18
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Mary Queen of Scots
- By: Antonia Fraser
- Narrated by: Patricia Hodge
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
More than 400 years after her death, Mary Queen of Scots remains one of the most romantic and controversial figures in British history. Antonia Fraser's classic biography of her won the James Tait Prize when it was first published in 1969. It became an international best-seller and was translated into nine languages.
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Really really recommended
- By Duncan on 10-12-09
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Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All
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If you were one of King Henry VIII's six wives, who would you be? Would you be Anne Boleyn, who literally lost her head? Would you be the subject of rumor and scandal like Catherine Howard? Or would you get away and survive like Anna of Cleves? Meet them and Henry's other queens - each bound for divorce or death - in this epic and thrilling novel that reads like fantasy but really happened.
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Wonderful Read
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Catherine de Medici
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The best-selling revisionist biography of one of the great women of the 16th century. Orphaned in infancy, Catherine de Medici was the sole legitimate heiress to the Medici family fortune. Married at 14 to the future Henri II of France, she was constantly humiliated by his influential mistress, Diane de Poitiers. When her husband died as a result of a duelling accident in Paris, Catherine was made queen regent during the short reign of her eldest son (married to Mary Queen of Scots, and like many of her children he died young). When her second son became king, she was the power behind the throne.
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The Kiss of the Concubine
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- Unabridged
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January 28, 1547. It is almost midnight, and the cream of English nobility hold their breath as King Henry VIII prepares to face his God. As the royal physicians wring their hands and Archbishop Cranmer gallops through the frigid night, two dispossessed princesses pray for their father's soul, and a boy, soon to be king, snivels into his velvet sleeve. Time slows, and dread settles around the royal bed, the candles dip, and something stirs in the darkness...something, or someone, has come to tell the king it is time to pay his dues.
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Beautifully written and sensitively narrated
- By Niki Gemini on 22-08-18
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The King's Assassin
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- Unabridged
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The rise of George Villiers from minor gentry to royal power seemed to defy gravity. Becoming gentleman of the royal bedchamber in 1615, the young gallant enraptured James, Britain’s first Stuart king, royal adoration reaching such an intensity that the king declared he wanted the courtier to become his ‘wife’. For a decade, Villiers was at the king’s side - at court, on state occasions and in bed, right up to James’ death in March 1625.
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Queens of the Conquest
- By: Alison Weir
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- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In the first volume of this epic new series, Alison Weir strips away centuries of romantic mythology and prejudice to reveal the lives of England's queens in the century after the Norman Conquest. Beginning with Matilda of Flanders, who supported William the Conqueror in 1066, to the turbulent life of the Empress Maud, who claimed to be queen of England in her own right and fought a bitter war to that end, the five Norman queens emerge as hugely influential figures and fascinating characters.
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Fascinating book but at times difficult to listen
- By BookWorm on 01-11-17
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Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him
- The Secret History Behind the Tudor Throne
- By: Tracy Borman
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- Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Henry's relationships with the men who surrounded him reveal much about his beliefs, behaviour and character. They show him to be capable of fierce but seldom abiding loyalty, of raising men only to destroy them later. He loved to be attended and entertained by boisterous young men who shared his passion for sport, but at other times he was more diverted by men of intellect, culture and wit.
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Great book
- By james dixon on 01-02-19
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The Virgin’s Lover
- The Tudor Court, Book 7
- By: Philippa Gregory
- Narrated by: Perdita Weeks
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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1558. After years of waiting, Princess Elizabeth accedes to the throne of England. For many, Elizabeth’s ascension is a glorious new dawn. Not so for Amy Dudley, whose ambitious husband, Sir Robert, is the acknowledged favourite of the new queen - a queen who must marry to secure her survival. But Robert Dudley has many powerful enemies. And although she is clearly besotted with him, the virgin queen will not risk her hold on the throne.
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In some parts it's slow but ending is very good
- By Catriona Ferris on 15-11-18
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Lancaster and York
- The Wars of the Roses
- By: Alison Weir
- Narrated by: Maggie Mash
- Length: 22 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Lancater and York is a riveting account of the Wars of the Roses, from beloved historian Alison Weir. The war between the houses of Lancaster and York was characterised by treachery, deceit, and bloody battles. Alison Weir's lucid and gripping account focuses on the human side of history. At the centre of the book stands Henry VI, the pious king whose mental instability led to political chaos, and his wife Margaret of Anjou, who took up her arms in her husband's cause and battled in a violent man's world.
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Incredible Events - Oddly Dull in Presentation
- By Alison on 04-11-14
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The Husband Hunters
- Social Climbing in London and New York
- By: Anne de Courcy
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Dozens of young American heiresses married into the British peerage, bringing with them all the fabulous wealth, glamour and sophistication of the Gilded Age. Anne de Courcy sets the stories of these young women and their families in the context of their times. Based on extensive firsthand research, drawing on diaries, memoirs and letters, this richly entertaining group biography reveals what they thought of their new lives in England - and what England thought of them.
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Husband Hunters
- By Amazon Customer on 27-11-17
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The Strangest Family: The Private Lives of George III, Queen Charlotte and the Hanoverians
- By: Janice Hadlow
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 27 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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An intensely moving account of George III's doomed attempt to create a happy, harmonious family, written with astonishing emotional force from a stunning new history writer. George III came to the throne in 1760 as a man with a mission. He wanted to be a new kind of king, one whose power was rooted in the affection and approval of his people. And he was determined to revolutionise his private life too - to show that a better man would, inevitably, make a better ruler.
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Probably a great book but...
- By Clementi on 04-09-15
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Henry VIII: King and Court
- By: Alison Weir
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 25 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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This magnificent biography of Henry VIII is set against the cultural, social and political background of his court - the most spectacular court ever seen in England - and the splendour of his many sumptuous palaces. An entertaining narrative packed with colourful description and a wealth of anecdotal evidence, but also a comprehensive analytical study of the development of both monarch and court during a crucial period in English history.
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Informative and absorbing biography
- By Kirstine on 04-07-17
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Elizabeth's Rival
- The Tumultuous Tale of Lettice Knollys, Countess of Leicester
- By: Nicola Tallis
- Narrated by: Charlotte Strevens
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Cousin to Elizabeth I - and possibly Henry VIII's illegitimate granddaughter - Lettice Knollys had a life of dizzying highs and pitiful lows. Entangled in a love triangle with Robert Dudley and Elizabeth I, banished from court, plagued by scandals, embroiled in treason, Lettice would lose a husband and son to the executioner's ax. In the first ever biography of this remarkable woman, Nicola Tallis takes us through her dramatic life and the grand sweep of the Tudor Age and the events that define it.
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Too many maybe and perhaps
- By janice h. on 25-08-18
Summary
Lady Georgiana Spencer was the great-great-great-great-aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales, and was nearly as famous in her day. In 1774 Georgiana achieved immediate celebrity by marrying William Cavendish, fifth Duke of Devonshire, one of England's richest and most influential aristocrats. She became the queen of fashionable society and founder of the most important political salon of her time. But Georgiana's public success concealed an unhappy marriage, a gambling addiction, drinking, drug taking, and rampant love affairs with the leading politicians of the day.
With penetrating insight, Amanda Foreman reveals a fascinating woman whose struggle against her own weaknesses, whose great beauty and flamboyance, and whose determination to play a part in the affairs of the world make her a vibrant, astonishingly contemporary figure.
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- Johanna
- 15-05-16
Captivating Biography with Outstanding Narration
The story of Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire is inspirational at times, tragic at times, and chock-full of juicy gossip. I enjoyed learning about this fascinating woman and her crazy social circle.
Amanda Foreman’s knowledge is mesmerizing, and Wanda McCaddon’s narration is equally as engaging. McCaddon even uses character voices to read the many letters in the book!
As you will notice from the book cover, the 2008 movie, The Duchess, with Keira Knightley was based on this biography. I wasn’t a huge fan of the movie, but have now learned after listening to the book that the film is riddled with historical blunders. It doesn’t nearly do justice to the complexity of Georgiana’s rich life.
If you like this biography and time period, I would highly recommend listening to the novel Evelina by Frances Burney next.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful
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- Sarah
- 31-07-17
Better than the movie!
Where does The Duchess rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
I loved this book. I loved the movie, wanted to know more about the Duchess. She is even more interesting than the movie led on. Her personal life history is so amazing, she led such an interesting life. I love historical biographies, and this is definitely worth your time and money!
What did you like best about this story?
The personal loves of the Duchess, and her dalliances into politics and how both these things greatly influenced her life and the people around her.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful