The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn | 
 enlarge | Author: Eric Ives
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 15996
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.7
ISBN: 1405134631
Dewey Decimal Number: 942.052092
EAN: 9781405134637
ASIN: 1405134631
Publication Date: July 29, 2005
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Condition: BRAND NEW
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
This definitive biography of Anne Boleyn establishes her as a figure of considerable importance and influence in her own right.
- A full biography of Anne Boleyn, based on the latest scholarly research.
- Focuses on Anne’s life and legacy and establishes Anne as a figure of considerable importance and influence in her own right.
- Adulteress or innocent victim? Looks afresh at the issues at the heart of Anne's downfall.
- Pays attention to her importance as a patron of the arts, particularly in relation to Hans Holbein.
- Presents evidence about Anne’s spirituality and her interest in the intellectual debates of the period.
- Takes account of significant advances in knowledge in recent years.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
great book!! July 31, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
i loved this book, very accurate and insightful, great read for all anne boleyn fans.
EXCELLENT BIOGRAPHY July 30, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a must-read for any Anne Boleyn fan, who wants to learn more about her life. This book lists many intricate details about Anne's life at court, which I found fascinating!
Indispensable July 17, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Anne Boleyn was undoubtedly one history's most fascinating woman. She was not conventionally beautiful, she had a sharp-tongued, acidic personality, and she engendered both obsessive love and implacable hatred in the people around her. She also was caught in the middle of a bitter, bloody war between the traditional Catholics and the Reform Protestants. As a result, trying to know the "real" Anne Boleyn is a hard task indeed, as contemporary accounts are extremely biased. In the end, we don't even really know which drawings or portraits are accurate.
But Eric Ives has taken up this enormously difficult task of finding the woman behind the legend, and his book will probably be the standard for years to come. He has carefully considered all his sources, including the ones that are obviously extremely biased, and weighed what is probably true and what is not. He has started from scratch, using only contemporary (meaning, Tudor era) sources, and spends an entire chapter weighing which sources can be trusted, and which cannot. For instance, Eustace Chapuys's accounts are heavily biased towards Katherine of Aragon, but they also give a great timeline of the divorce proceedings. He spends anther chapter devoted to which portraits or images of Anne is likely to be the most accurate. His conclusion: a ring that Anne's daughter Elizabeth wore that had a cameo of herself and her mother. Little details like that make the book more human, for while Henry tried the best he could to erase Anne from history, it is clear that Elizabeth never forgot her mother. Ives also uses the poetry of Thomas Wyatt, an early admirer of Anne who seems to have always carried a torch for her, to great effect.
Ives' tone is that of a detached scholar, and while he is obviously fascinated by Anne, and eager to dispel the more vicious myths about her, this is no hagiography. He reports the ugly side of Anne's personality -- her imperiousness, her tendency to kick people while they were down. Of Katherine of Aragon, Anne once coldly remarked that she "wished all Spaniards were at the bottom of the sea." Yet the overall picture of Anne is that of a remarkable woman. Intelligent, independent, radical in her belief of the Protestant Reform movement, a mover and shaker.
That such an intelligent woman could fall so fast in fortune speaks volumes both of the cruelty of Henry VIII, the machinations of Thomas Cromwell (the book's villain), and the status of women in Anne's time. Henry loved Anne because she was outspoken, witty, elusive, and cultured (she spent her adolescence in the French royal court). But once they were married, she was expected to start bearing sons, and to tolerate infidelity. She was also expected to keep her nose out of political and religious affairs. She could not do any of the above. Her fall (three weeks from arrest to execution) is documented with astonishing detail.
Warning: although Ives' book is extremely well-written, it is not an "easy" read. It is extremely scholarly in tone, and if you want a more general overview of Henry VIII's wives, then Alison Weir, Antonia Fraser, and David Starkey have all written excellent books on the subject. The middle section, which goes into rather arcane detail about Anne's interest in arts, culture, court life, interior decorating and religious reform is on the dry side.
My other criticism of Ives is that in his eagerness to paint a picture of a larger conspiracy to dethrone Anne by Thomas Cromwell, the religious conservatives, and the ever-ambitious Seymour clan, he almost lets Henry VIII off the hook. In the end, one person could have stopped Anne the "beloved wife" from such a cruel fate and that was her husband. But despite these flaws, Ives' level of research goes above and beyond the call of duty. Anne finally had her fair day in court, and no doubt she would have been very proud.
A fascinating Woman July 4, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Anne Boleyn continues to fascinate. A woman of wit, intelligence and a feminist in her time. She won a king's heart but incurred his wrath. A life cut short, a child deprived of her mother. A true tale of intrigue, corruption and manipulation. A cast of interesting characters vieing for power, wealth and fame.
Highly Recommend July 3, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you are interested in historical content as well as an interesting read then this book is for you. If you were lucky enough to watch Showtime's "The Tudors" it makes the book even more enjoyable. While Showtime took certain historical liberties with the series, the book does not. It is a definite page turner. Mr. Ives has managed to help the reader appreciate this particular period of history that comes alive with the cast of characters, intrigue, love and death. Well done Mr. Ives.
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