Title: Princesses: The Six Daughters of George IIIAuthor: Flora Fraser
First Published: 2004
No. of Pages: 399
Synopsis (from B&N): "Fraser takes us into the heart of the British royal family during the tumultuous period of the American and French revolutions and beyond, illuminating the complicated lives of these exceptional women: Princess Royal, the eldest, constantly at odds with her mother; home-loving, family-minded Augusta; plump Elizabeth, a gifted amateur artist; Mary, the blond beauty of the family; Sophia, emotional and prone to take refuge in illness; and Amelia, 'the most turbulent and tempestuous of all the Princesses.' Weaving together letters and historical accounts, Fraser re-creates their world in all its frustrations and excitements.
The six sisters, though handsome, accomplished and extremely well educated, were kept from marrying by George III, and Fraser describes how they remained subject to their father for many years, while he teetered on the brink of mental collapse. The King may have believed that his six daughters were happy to live celibately at Windsor, but secretly, as Fraser's absorbing narrative of royal repression and sexual license shows, the sisters enjoyed startling freedom. Several of them, torn between love for their ailing father and longing for independence, forged their own scandalous and subversive lives within the castle walls. With a discerning eye for psychological detail and a keen feminist sensibility, Fraser delves into these clandestine love affairs, revealing the truth about Sophia's illegitimate baby; examining Amelia's intimate correspondence with her soldier-lover; and investigating the eventual marriages of Princesses Royal, Elizabeth and Mary."
Fiction or Nonfiction: Nonfiction
Comments and Critique: An interesting look at the lives of these six princesses. The author relies greatly on the princesses' own letters and letters written to them by others. The writing style is a bit choppy in the early chapters, but gets better as you get further in. My two biggest complaints with the book are these: 1) it is incredibly difficult to keep the various people straight, and 2) the author does not provide the analysis and historical context to make this a truly great biography.
On the first point, it must be acknowledged that there is only so much any author can do. The princesses had nine brothers, so you're already starting off with a large number. Then you add in the brothers' wives, and the husbands of those sisters that married, and all the children resulting therefrom. This probably wouldn't be as difficult but for the added fact that many of the individuals had the same name. An example: one of the princesses was Augusta. There was also her grandmother Augusta, her aunt Augusta, her two sisters-in-law Augusta (one of which married her brother Augustus), and her niece Augusta. The reader needs a scorecard to keep everybody straight, which is attempted to be addressed by the family tree provided in the front of the book. Obviously, the author can't change everyone's names, but I do feel that she could have differentiated better. This criticism especially applies when an individual is given a title and the author alternatively refers to them by their given name and their title. Very confusing.
As to the second point, while it's true that these princesses had little impact on world affairs and were apparently not interested in politics, it would still have been better to provide a more detailed analysis of the events of the day, if only because those events were often greatly affected by people important to them. Perhaps if the book were limited only to the lives of the princesses this would be less of a problem, but the author includes mini-biographies of their father, brothers, and husbands, all of whom were extremely involved in historical events.
An interesting tidbit is that the author is the daughter of noted historian and biographer Lady Antonia Fraser and the granddaughter of Elizabeth Longford, another biographer. I've previously read books by Lady Fraser and found them exceptional. This one is not quite as good, but the fact that Ms. Fraser had only two books to her credit prior to this one and that she comes from a family of biographers both give me high hopes that she will continue to improve with experience.
Challenges: 999 ("Biography"); Support Your Local Library
2 comments:
This is not a book I have heard of, but it does look interesting. I will have to see if the library has it. Thanks for the review!
I read this and enjoyed it (I like these type of books). I constantly have to refer to the family trees included :-)!
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