No comments about Francis Frith's English Country Houses (Photographic Memories).

No comments about A genealogical dictionary of the first settlers of New England, showing three generations of those who came before May, 1692, on the basis of Farmer's Register. By James Savage.: Vol. 1.

1 comments about The Hub: Boston Past and Present.

1. Harvard University offered an adult evening course on the history of Boston. The course ran weekly for 2 hours during an entire academic year and it was expensive. This would seem to have parochial interest only; it didn't. When Thomas O'Connor held forth, the large lecture hall was filled.
   Doctor O'Connor is an inspired lecturer. The facts flowed orderly, abundantly and quite effortlessly into my spiral bounds. This was a refreshing experience that I have not so often encountered [and I have had lots of experience].
   My interest in Boston began as a volunteer guide for Boston By Foot. It soon became clear that Boston has stories, legends, myths and scandals at every curb stone. The city is a walkable historical delight for those in the know.
   The colonial and maritime importance of Boston can not be overemphasized. Its growth and declines informed and mirrored our national history.
   My class notes from Harvard take up two invaluable notebooks. I refer to them often for my tours and lectures.
   THIS BOOK IS THOSE NOTES!

2 comments about The Mitford Family Album.

1. I first became intrigued by the glamorous, aristocratic Mitford family after discovering a hilarious 1940's, semi-autobiographical satire ("The Pursuit of Love") by Nancy Mitford. The six beautiful Mitford sisters, and one beleaguered brother, were all "bright young things," taking part in the decades-long party for fun-loving, uppercrust Londoners in the '20's and '30's. Most of the sisters, of which Nancy and Diana are the most famous, were either highly talented or notorious, or both. Several endured tragedies, sometimes entirely of their own making. Not surprisingly, their parents, Lord and Lady Redesdale, also were highly eccentric figures. The Mitford Family Album is a breezy, interesting description, by one of the family's grandchildren, of life among the Mitfords and their social circle. About half of the book is made up of photographs of this eminently photogenic family, their friends, and a succession of stately homes in which the Mitfords lived. Several of the Mitford sisters befriended very bad people, and the album shows some photographs with them. The accompanying text gives a miniature portrait of each sibling and their "Muv" and "Farve," along with interesting inside detail that only a close member of the family could have gleaned. Overall, a fascinating glimpse into one of the conventionally unconventional British families of its time.



2. This book does two things that most modern biographies fail to do. The first is that it is the story of a family played out in pictures and the Mitford girls were most definitely a family that is worth finding out more about, their eccentricities and talent made them one of the most interesting and infamous families of their generation. The second is the author (Sophia Murphy) is the daughter of the youngest of the Mitford girls, Debo the Duchess of Devonshire and so not only has unlimited access to the photo Albums of her aunt's but also lends authority to the family stories by having an inside knowledge of what went on.

   The Mitford girls were born between 1904 and 1920 to the third Lord Redesdale and his wife. Nancy, the eldest grew up to be an author who mercilessly lampooned her upbringing, friends and family in her various novels, the two most autobiographical being the Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. These are well worth reading by the way if you want to understand this book and the family.

   Of the other five girls (and one son) two went on to be famous supporters of facism, one a communist, another a Duchess and the least controversial managed a farm. As at May 1992 two of the daughters (Diana and Debo) are still alive and still as alert and intelligent as ever.

   There have been numerous biographies written about the family and various daughters over the year but this album is lovely to see the family in pictures. A double page is given over to a series of photos gleaned from various albums and telling a bit of a story about a particular time in the Mitford's life. It isn't quite like opening a family album - it is full of gossip and information which makes it more of a cross between a light biography and picture book.

   If you have a Mitford fascination or want to see more of this family this book is well worth picking up. All the printing is in black and white - makes sense since nearly all the photos have been taken in black and white anyway. It gives an insight into the privilege, wealth and eccentricities of a family of famously talented peer's daughters from the period mostly between the two wars.

No comments about Privies Galore.

3 comments about Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen and Legend.

1. This book was an accurate account of Eleanor of Aquitaine. He does a wonderful job in depicting her life.



2. This is a great book. I learned so much from this book. I am doing a project on Queen Eleanor and it helped me so much.I hope everyone else learns as much as I did! I hope that she will still have her name in history in a houndred years from now. ENJOY the book.



3. The late D.D.R. Owen was Professor Emeritus of French at Scotland's University of St. Andrews. He had acquired the languages, the deep cultural knowledge and the scholar's discipline that equipped him to compose a fine, restrained biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Owen's treatment is careful to draw a line between rumor and fact (insofar as that line can be drawn more than eight centuries later). He exposes rumors, plays them down and turns his attention to accenting history.
   
   Eleanor was a patron and sponsor of troubadours at her many courts. Verses and songs in her praise inevitably fueled the whiff of scandal. Her enemies' verses and whisperings, her larger than life character and the written records of tut-tutting clerics from Paris to Antioch all darkened her record. Owen set himself the task of rubbing away the grime of ages to expose the life at the core. His account of Eleanor's limitations and excesses is no less interesting for that. Thus he can show more clearly than most how much authority this amazing woman did, or did not, exercise through sixty-seven years during which she counseled, provoked or scorned four kings, two of them her husbands, two of them her sons.
   
   Owen's "Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen and Legend" is the book for readers who want their Eleanor, beauty, warts and all, but shorn of celebrity fluff. In that sense it complements Bonnie Wheeler's and John Parsons' "Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady." Both books offer scholarly approaches. They are well matched in presenting well-crafted interpretations of violent, turbulent, very strange times, with a strong-willed queen presiding.
   
   Robert Fripp, author of
   Power of a Woman. Memoirs of a turbulent life: Eleanor of Aquitaine

No comments about From Bulkeley to Bulkley to Buckley.

No comments about Norwich: History and Guide (History & guide series).

2 comments about The Tournament in England, 1100-1400.

1. While the nature of this work is very academic, it is so well writen that it becomes a pleasure to read. Full of interesting examples and stories, the author is careful to put everything in context. It contains none of the usual "conservative for the sake of it" attitude that can be so annoying in more academic history books. If you have any intrest in hastiludes then you will love this book. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is none of the quotes are translated.



2. As the previous reviewer noted, this book contains entire passages of quotations in untranslated Old French. I am, admittedly, an amateur scholar/enthusiast, but I cannot believe it possible that a large percentage of this book's target readership is fluent in Old French! Would it really have been so much trouble for the editors to provide footnotes of translation?

No comments about The History of Ancient Windsor, Connecticut, Including East Windsor, South Windsor, and Ellington, Prior to 1768, the Date of Their Separation from the ... Genealogies and Gene (A Heritage classic).