Antonia Fraser

Personal

Born August 27, 1932, in London, England; daughter of Francis Aungier Pakenham, seventh Earl of Longford (a politician and writer) and Elizabeth Pakenham, Countess of Longford (a writer; maiden name, Harman); married Hugh Charles Patrick Joseph Fraser (member of parliament), September 25, 1956 (marriage ended, 1977); married Harold Pinter (a playwright), November 27, 1980; children: (first marriage) Rebecca, Flora, Benjamin, Natasha, Damian, Orlando. Education: Oxford University, B.A., 1953; received M.A. Religion: Roman Catholic. Hobbies and other interests: Swimming, "life in the garden."

Addresses

Home— London, England. Agent— Curtis Brown Ltd., 28-29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4SP.

Career

Writer, 1954—. Also worked as broadcaster and lecturer; panelist on British Broadcasting Corporation's My Word! radio program. Member of Arts Council, 1970-71.

Member

English PEN (president, 1988-1990; vice president, 1990—), Society of Authors (chairperson, 1974-75), Crimewriters Association (vice chairperson, 1984; chairperson, 1985-87), Detection, Vanderbilt, Writers in Prison Committee (chairman, 1985-88, 1990—).

Awards, Honors

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography, 1969, for Mary, Queen of Scots; Woltson Prize for history, 1984, and Prix Caumont-La Force, 1985, both for The Weaker Vessel; D. Litt., University of Hull, 1986, University of Sussex, 1990, University of Nottingham, 1993, St. Andrew's College, 1994; Crime Writers' Association Non-Fiction Gold Dagger, 1996; St. Louis Literary Award, 1996; Commander of the British Empire, 1999; North Medicott Medal, Historical Association, 2000; Franco-British Society Literary Prize.

Writings

HISTORICAL NONFICTION

Mary, Queen of Scots (biography), Delacorte (New York, NY), 1969, new edition, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 1994.

Cromwell, the Lord Protector (biography), Knopf (New York, NY), 1973, published as Cromwell, Our Chief of Men, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 1973.

Mary, Queen of the Scots, and the Historians, Royal Stuart Society (Ilford, Essex, England), 1974.

King James VI of Scotland, I of England (biography), Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 1974, Knopf (New York, NY), 1975.

Royal Charles: Charles II and the Restoration (biography), Knopf (New York, NY), 1979, published as King Charles II, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 1979, revised edition published as Charles II: His Life and Times, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 1993.

The Weaker Vessel: Woman's Lot in Seventeenth-Century England, Knopf (New York, NY), 1984.

The Warrior Queens, Knopf (New York, NY), 1988, published as Boadicea's Chariot: The Warrior Queens, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 1988.

The Wives of Henry VIII, Knopf (New York, NY), 1992, published as The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 1992.

Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1996, published as The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 1996.

Marie Antoinette: The Journey, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2001.

"JEMIMA SHORE" MYSTERY SERIES

Quiet as a Nun, Viking (New York, NY), 1977.

The Wild Island: A Mystery, Norton (New York, NY), 1978.

A Splash of Red, Norton (New York, NY), 1981.

Cool Repentance, Norton (New York, NY), 1982.

Oxford Blood, Norton (New York, NY), 1985.

Jemima Shore's First Case and Other Stories, Methuen (New York, NY), 1986.

Your Royal Hostage, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1988.

The Cavalier Case, Bantam (New York, NY), 1990.

Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave and Other Stories, Bloomsbury (London, England), 1991, Bantam (New York, NY), 1993.

Political Death, Bantam (New York, NY), 1996.

EDITOR

The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England (also see below), Knopf (New York, NY), 1975, revised edition, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1998.

Scottish Love Poems: A Personal Anthology, Canongate (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1975, Viking (New York, NY), 1976, new expanded edition, illustrated by James Hutcheson, Canongate (Edinburgh, Scotland), 2002.

Love Letters: An Anthology, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 1976, Knopf (New York, NY), 1977, published as Love Letters: An Illustrated Anthology, Contemporary Books (Chicago, IL), 1989.

Heroes and Heroines, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 1980.

Mary, Queen of Scots: An Anthology of Poetry, Eyre Methuen (London, England), 1981.

Oxford and Oxfordshire in Verse, illustrated by Rebecca Fraser, Secker & Warburg (London, England), 1982.

The Pleasure of Reading, Random House (New York, NY), 1992.

Maurice Ashley, The Stuarts (excerpted from Lives of the Kings and Queens of England), University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2000.

Anthony Cheetham, The Wars of the Roses (excerpted from Lives of the Kings and Queens of England), University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2000.

John Clarke, The Houses of Hanover and Sax-Coburg-Gotha (excerpted from Lives of the Kings and Queens of England), University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2000.

John Gillingham, The Middle Ages (excerpted from Lives of the Kings and Queens of England), University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2000.

Andrew Roberts, The House of Windsor (excerpted from Lives of the Kings and Queens of England), University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2000.

Neville Williams, The Tudors (excerpted from Lives of the Kings and Queens of England), University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2000.

OTHER

(Under name Antonia Pakenham) King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (juvenile), Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 1954, Knopf (New York, NY), 1970.

(Translator, under name Antonia Pakenham) Jean Monsterleet, Martyrs in China, Longman (London, England), 1956.

(Under name Antonia Pakenham) Robin Hood (juvenile), Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 1957, Knopf (New York, NY), 1971.

(Translator, under name Antonia Pakenham) Dior by Dior: The Autobiography of Christian Dior, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (London, England), 1957.

Dolls, Putnam (New York, NY), 1963.

A History of Toys, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1966, revised edition, Springer Books (New York, NY), 1972.

Contributor to anthologies, including Winter's Crimes 15, edited by George Hardinge, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1983, John Creasey's Crime Collection 1983, edited by Herbert Harris, Gollancz (London, England), 1983, and More Women of Mystery, Severn House, 1994. Also author of scripts for television series Jemima Shore Investigates, 1983. Also author of radio plays On the Battlements, 1975, The Heroine, 1976, and Penelope, 1976; author of television play Charades, 1977, "Mister Clay, Mister Clay" for the Time for Murder series, 1985, and Have a Nice Death, 1985. General editor, "Kings and Queens of England" series, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1953-55.

Adaptations

The novel A Splash of Red was adapted for television as Jemima Shore Investigates.

Sidelights

Versatile writer Antonia Fraser "has won many accolades for her meticulous research and attention to detail," wrote Edie Gibson in the Chicago Tribune, "[and for] bringing a lively narrative style to historical writing, capturing readers who typically shun such scholarly endeavors." Fraser secured her position as a noteworthy biographer with Mary, Queen of Scots, and has subsequently chronicled the lives of such other British figures as Oliver Cromwell, James I, and Charles II. With her acclaimed biography Marie Antoinette: The Journey, Fraser showed that she could write as well about subjects who were not British. In addition to her biographies of individuals, she has also written histories that are wider in scope. In The Weaker Vessel, Fraser examines the place of women in seventeenth-century England, and The Warrior Queens illuminates the leadership roles women often assume in times of war. Fraser has also proven herself adept at writing fiction; in a popular series of mysteries, she details the adventures of Jemima Shore, a liberated investigative television reporter who has a knack for solving mysteries.

A Literary Childhood

Fraser was born "into a distinguished socialist family—'the literary Longfords,'" as Katherine Staples recounted in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. "She was the first of eight children born to University of Oxford-trained Francis Aungier and Elizabeth Harmon Pakenham. Her parents both supported the Labour Party in the 1930s and became Catholics in the 1940s. Both dabbled in politics and social reform and ran for political office (her father successfully; her mother not). Her father, an Oxford historian, became the seventh earl of Longford in 1961 and assumed a seat in the House of Lords (he had previously been a member of the House of Commons); her mother, a relative of the Chamberlains, became Lady Longford. Both parents wrote scholarly books, and Fraser reports not being able to remember a time when her mother was not researching or writing—a pattern she imitated in her own life." At thirteen, following the example set by her parents, Fraser chose to convert to Catholicism and transferred to a Catholic school. She told Ray Connolly of the London Times of her initial attraction to the church: "I loved all the ritual, the white veils on Sunday and the black veils for going to mass every morning." Fraser married Hugh Charles Patrick Joseph Fraser, a member of parliament, in 1956. Staples reported: "They settled down in a Georgian home with traditional gardens in Kensington. Parents of three sons and three daughters, the Frasers became noted as politically active socialites. Fraser worked as a broadcaster and lecturer, was a panelist on the BBC radio program My Word!, and appeared on television talk shows—experiences that later provided inside knowledge of television broadcasting for her Jemima Shore mysteries."

Becomes a Biographer

"Encouraged by her mother, the countess of Long-ford, a noted biographer best known for her study of Queen Victoria and the duke of Wellington, Fraser began her serious writing career with popular histories that captured the romance and intrigue of sixteenth-and seventeenth-century personalities," Staples explained. Mary, Queen of Scots, Fraser's first biography, established the standard for her historical writing: thorough research, vivid character portraits, and sound scholarship presented in a manner that appealed to a wide audience. Jean Stafford of Book World noted that Fraser conveys "a vivid sense of the mores of the sixteenth century" in Mary, Queen of Scots. In addition, "she succeeds in almost completely clarifying the muddied maelstrom in which Europe and the British Isles were thrashing and trumpeting," Stafford continued, with "a narrative dexterity that makes her sad tale seem told for the first time." "Mary emerges neither as a Jezebel nor as a saint," declared a reviewer for Time, "but as a high-spirited woman who was brave, rather romantic, and not very bright." "Satisfying to scholars," commented a Times Literary Supplement critic, "the book is eminently one for the general reader, its style both spirited and graceful."

Fraser's early works, critics have noted, are strict biography in the sense that they examine the life of a single person, but they do not attempt to discuss the individual's actions in terms of the age in which he or she lived. In Cromwell, the Lord Protector, King James VI of Scotland, I of England, and Royal Charles, Fraser's portrayals of eminent historical figures are brought "so vividly to life that the history of the age in which they play so arresting a part tends to lose itself in the background," according to Peter Stansky of the New York Times Book Review. In reviewing Royal Charles, Stansky commented on the difference between pure biography and historical biography: "Unlike, for example, Barbara Tuchman, who sees biography as a 'Prism of History,' and admits to using it 'less for the sake of the individual subject than as a vehicle for exhibiting an age,' Lady Antonia is wholeheartedly committed to the life of the individual subject."

Fraser altered her strict biographical approach with her 1984 award-winning study The Weaker Vessel: Woman's Lot in Seventeenth-Century England. Rather than focusing on a single character as her earlier biographies had done, The Weaker Vessel looks at many roles for women in the 1600s, with special emphasis on "marriage, birth, widowhood, divorce, prostitution, the stage, business, and so forth," summarized Brigitte Weeks in the Washington Post. "Each chapter is a maze of interconnected life stories of women, almost always pregnant, ending all too often in sudden death, mostly in childbirth," Weeks continued. Fraser investigated women's varied responsibilities during the English Civil War: holding custody of castles, leading troops into battle, writing treatises, and presenting petitions to parliament. After the war, however, these newly won liberties were rescinded, leaving women in much the same position as they were before the conflict. "One of the lies about historical progress," declared Peter S. Prescott in a Newsweek review of The Weaker Vessel "is that it hunches inexorably along its way. In fact, progress is cyclical; it jumps sporadically, only to be set back again." Fraser's analysis of the gamut of class roles, from dairymaid to actress to heiress, prompted Maureen Quilligan of the Nation to acknowledge that "it will be hard for anyone to paint a fuller, more vivid or more abundantly detailed portrait of women in seventeenth-century England."

The Warrior Queens, another survey of women's history, grew out of the research Fraser did for The Weaker Vessel. The work focuses on women who have led their countries into war, women such as the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, the British tribal leader Boadicea, and Zenobia, the third-century Queen of the desert city of Palmyra, all of whom led forces against the Roman Empire. Also included are modern-day leaders such as Israel's Golda Meir and Great Britain's Margaret Thatcher. "Seeking explanations for these women's rise to power and their enormous personal magnetism," wrote Barbara Benton in MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, "she attempts to isolate common themes in their stories."

In The Warrior Queens, Fraser categorizes the patterns of behavior that these women leaders have utilized in wielding their power. Victoria Glendenning enumerated these in the London Times: "The Appendance Syndrome, according to which the Warrior Queen justifies herself by stressing her connection with a famous father or husband, or fights allegedly on behalf of her son; the Shame Syndrome, otherwise the Better-man Syndrome, which means she shows up the chaps by being braver than they are; the Tomboy Syndrome, which implies that she never played with dolls when she was a little girl; and the Only-a-Weak-Woman Syndrome, when she puts on a sudden show of weakness or modesty for strategic purposes." In addition to these is the "voracity syndrome" in which powerful women are separated into models of virtue or monsters of lust. Fraser's conclusions, summarized Margaret Atwood in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, show that "public women are put through different tests of nerve, attract different kinds of criticism, and are subject to different sorts of mythologizing than are men, and The Warrior Queens indicates what kinds."

The Wives of Henry VIII,

Continuing her interest in the lives of prominent women in history, Fraser wrote The Wives of Henry VIII, which provides new interpretations of the six women who, according to Fraser, are often "defined in a popular sense not so much by their lives as by the way these lives ended," as Angeline Goreau quoted her saying in the New York Times Book Review. During his reign from 1509 to 1547, Henry VIII's unsuccessful quest to produce a male heir to succeed him left four wives dead and two in the unceremonious state of being divorced. From Catherine of Aragon to Catherine Parr, Fraser explores the lives of those she proclaims were "intelligent and fascinating people who were variously misused, abandoned, and executed" by the king, according to Bonnie Angelo in Time. Fraser analyzes the effect of divorce on Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves and illustrates its impact on the rest of their lives; an aspect that prompted Goreau to deem the book "a deeply engaging portrait of a marriage—in serial." About this notorious episode of history, Angelo concluded that "Fraser brings to it insights—and a keen feminist edge—based on meticulous research."

In Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot, Fraser sheds new light on the events that are now commemorated every year on Guy Fawkes' Day—a November 5 holiday that is celebrated in England with huge bonfires and the burning in effigy of the Pope. In 1605, Roman Catholics were subject to terrible persecution in England, despite the fact that King James I was the son of one Catholic, and the husband of another. Dissidents hatched a plan to blow up the unsympathetic king and most of his nobles at the opening of Parliament that year. The plan failed miserably, and the unsuccessful rebels have been reviled throughout most of English history. "Antonia Fraser, with her usual combination of careful scholarship and a nose for a good subject, has now told the plotters' story," advised Michael Elliott in the New York Times. "It is such a good yarn that one wonders why nobody has tried to popularize it before."

"Fraser's searching look at the failed conspiracy of Robert Catesby (the actual planner) and Guy Fawkes could not be more timely," reported a Publishers Weekly writer. The author draws parallels between the Gunpowder Plot and modern terrorism, asking "the old but difficult questions: When does persecution excuse violence? How far should a cause of conscience be defended?" said Elliott. Another reviewer, New Statesman contributor Diarmaid MacCulloch, noted that there are many books on the Gunpowder Plot, but named Fraser's book as "a good place to start for a serious, balanced treatment of the still-mysterious affair. She manages to combine scholarly breadth and historical sympathy with readability and wit. Writing with fellow-feeling for the Roman Catholic plotters and those they dragged down to disaster, she nevertheless avoids … partisanship."

A New Look at Marie Antoinette

In 2001, Fraser took a fresh look at one of history's most reviled women: Marie Antoinette, the last queen of France. Beheaded in 1793 along with her husband, Louis XVI, she was slandered in her lifetime as a heartless spendthrift and a pervert. This reputation has stayed with her throughout the passing centuries. Yet Fraser's characteristically painstaking research shows that in the years before the French Revolution reached the boiling point, Marie Antoinette was reputed to be a kind-hearted queen, one whose virtue was far beyond that of most of her contemporaries. While some accounts of her life report that Marie Antoinette had many lovers of both sexes, Fraser concludes that there was probably only one, despite Louis XVI's apparent inability to consummate his marriage for many years. Fraser paints Marie as extravagant and somewhat desperate for happiness, but her portrait is sympathetic to the young woman who led a lonely, manipulated life. A Kirkus Reviews writer credited Fraser with skill in turning "this spoiled, not-too-bright princess into a likable character." The biography shows how Marie was groomed by her powerful mother, the Empress Maria Teresa, but barely educated enough to learn to write her name. This spirited girl was sent to the French court when she has just fourteen years old, where she was a captive in the opulent, decadent world of court life and court intrigue. Yet she showed her independence by asserting her own will in such matters as giving birth in private and wearing simple dresses and little makeup after the birth of her children. Her calmness and dignity on being led to the guillotine has been frequently remarked upon. The real villains in Marie Antoinette's story, according to a writer for Economist, "were the journalists and cartoonists who pilloried the queen, creating a monster from one whose chief crime was to be careless about her public image." Houston Chronicle reviewer Fritz Lanham called Marie Antoinette: The Journey "the best sort of biography: vigorously argued, richly detailed, with a clear viewpoint on its subject.… Despite the melancholy subject matter, it's hard to put down."

Shifts Focus to Detective Fiction

Fraser divorced in 1977, and married the playwright Harold Pinter in 1980. "The free-spirited Jemima Shore mysteries, with their lively sexuality and their cynicism about establishment figures, are a product of this second marriage," according to Staples. "Despite the fact that she was able to bring a personal style to the writing of history," declared Rosemary Herbert in a Publishers Weekly interview with the author, "in the mid-'70s Fraser 'felt that there was something in myself that history didn't express.' She gave in to the impulse to write fiction and created the TV commentator/sleuth Jemima Shore, a stylish, liberated woman who shares some of the author's characteristics." Fraser further told Herbert that mystery writing fulfilled her need to "preserve a sort of order. I'm very interested in good and evil and the moral nature of my [characters]. People in my books tend to get their just desserts." "Critics have described Fraser's works as witty, droll, stylish, sophisticated, and literate, and they praise her skill at deftly bringing together history, scholarship, theater, and detection," Staples wrote. "Fraser aims for straightforward mystery stories against a variety of backgrounds that allow her to explore the possibilities of her amateur sleuth and to emphasize the subtleties of human behavior more than the enactment of bloody deeds." P. D. James, herself a well-known mystery writer, greeted the investigator's debut in Quiet as a Nun with pleasure, noting that the story "is written with humour and sympathy and has a heroine of whom, happily, it is promised that we shall know more."

Though not as "lovably eccentric as Peter Wimsey, Jane Marple, Hercule Poirot, or the great Sherlock Holmes," wrote Anne Tolstoi Wallach in the New York Times Book Review, Jemima Shore is nevertheless "prettier, sexier, and far more in tune with today's London." Margaret Cannon, writing in the Toronto Globe and Mail, was fascinated by the details that Fraser provides about the upper class settings through which Shore moves—circles in which Fraser herself travels. In the seventh Jemima Shore mystery, The Cavalier Case, Shore ventures to a haunted estate to produce a television segment about the ghost of a seventeenth-century poet who has apparently caused several deaths. During her investigation, Shore becomes involved with the new viscount of the manor. Though crime is not in short supply in Fraser's Jemima Shore novels, the incidents tend to be relatively mild because, as Fraser stated in the St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers, she has "a horror of blood dripping from the page," adding, "my books are therefore aimed at readers who feel likewise."

Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave and Other Stories is a collection of nine mystery stories, most of which are set on remote islands and involve Fraser's well-known heroine. The title story involves the murder of an elderly heiress at her plantation mansion in the Caribbean, where Jemima Shore is preparing a television documentary. In another story, "The Moon Was to Blame," Fraser recounts an Englishman's Greek-island vacation with his wife, punctuated by murder and eroticism. Brad Hooper noted in a Booklist review that Fraser displays "precision" and "characteristic elan." The collection is described by a Kirkus Reviews critic as "highly civilized, suavely written—and immensely readable."

In Political Death Jemima Shore resolves a longstanding British political scandal from the 1960s. During a heated political campaign, Lady Imogen Swain, the aged former mistress of a contemporary political candidate, reveals her intimate knowledge of the "Faber Mystery," involving the disappearance of a man accused of selling government secrets. After offering her story and incriminating diaries to Shore, Lady Imogen dies from a suspicious fall, prompting Shore to pursue a trail of evidence through the British theater and political scenes to solve the case.

Many critics agree that Fraser's detective stories are worthy additions to the illustrious heritage of British detective writing. Beverly Lyon Clark wrote in the New York Times Book Review that Oxford Blood is "in the tradition of the British whodunit, especially that of the Tea Cake and Country House mystery—or, in this case, the Champagne and Maserati sort.…Antonia Fraser is not quite Dorothy Sayers, not quite P. D. James. But she does have a seductive style." Shore believed, according to Cannon, that "there's nothing in the detective code of ethics that says you have to dress badly, get married or pass up an interesting one-night stand. It's a long way from St. Mary Mead, but I somehow think that [Agatha Christie's detective] Miss Marple, shrewd student of human nature that she was, would approve."

Lyn Pykett, a contributor to the St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers, also declared Fraser's detective novels to be very much in the classic English tradition. Like so many of the fictional detectives before her, Jemima Shore is an upper-middle-class amateur in the sleuthing game. She is "a modern, 'liberated' version of the inquisitive spinster detective. Like her predecessors, Shore is propelled into her investigations by her 'Eve-like' curiosity … and like theirs her success in detection derives in large measure from her class and gender position," asserted Pykett. "She is usually a privileged insider in the social circles which form the locus of her investigations. She is often on the scene before the crime occurs and the police arrive, and her convent-educated, Cambridge-honed brain, and her social savoir-faire take her in directions where flat-footed policemen may not tread. Ultimately she is, perhaps, in the tradition of Dorothy L. Sayers's Harriet Vane, rather than Agatha Christie's Miss Marple. She is a thoroughly modern young woman, unconventional and with a natural love of mischief." Pykett also noted that the "cool journalistic professionalism" possessed by Fraser's heroine "is offset by her apparent attraction to dangerous situations, and the fact that she is prone to sudden extremes of sexual attraction, often to rather unsuitable men." The commentator concluded: "Oxford, literary London, and the glamorous world of the media are Fraser's stock-in-trade in the Jemima Shore novels. Famous names and designer labels abound. Fraser's novels are always bright and witty, and their denouements are usually surprising."

Staples saw the character Jemima Shore as a major creation: "In Jemima Shore, Fraser develops a central character whose detection is more passive than active; her ingenuity, her knowledge of human nature, and her examination of her own motives, values, and commitments—personal, political, and ethical—help her discover psychological nuances that others miss. Jemima is caught up in complex marital and familial relationships that force her to question and evaluate her own sexual identity and her role as a successful professional who tries to live a full life as a free and single woman. In addition to the elaborate plots, intriguing social contexts, and character studies of the formal detective-novel tradition, Fraser brings to the genre a fantasy heroine who manages to have life her way."

Fraser has entertained many readers with her intriguing tales of both fact and fiction. Her historical interpretation, wrote Lawrence Stone of the New York Review of Books, displays "good judgement and a subtle appreciation of human psychology" and is complimented by her mysteries which Spectator reviewer Harriet Waugh called "jokey, accomplished, and action-packed." Wallach summarized that Fraser "writes both history and mystery with zest and verve, and her primary interest is people—foolish queens, military commanders, former wives, rival siblings or stepdaughters desperate for attention."

If you enjoy the works of Antonia Fraser

you might want to check out the following books:

Peter Massie, Peter the Great: His Life and World, 1980.

Nancy Mitford, Madame de Pompadour, 1968.

Alison Weir, The Life of Elizabeth I, 1998.

Biographical and Critical Sources

BOOKS

Authors in the News, Volume 2, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1976.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 276: British

Mystery and Thriller Writers since 1960, Gale (Detroit, MI), 2003.

Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd edition, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1998.

St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers, 4th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1996.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 15, 1992, p. 563; March 15, 1996, p. 1242; August, 2001, Brad Hooper, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 2046; January 1, 2002, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 757; March 1, 2002, Donna Seaman, review of Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot, p. 1085.

Book World, November 16, 1969.

Boston Herald, September 28, 2001, Rosemary Herbert, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 48.

Business Traveller Asia Pacific, May, 2003, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 15.

Chicago Tribune, March 16, 1988.

Chicago Tribune Book World, September 30, 1984.

Christian Science Monitor, December 7, 1979.

Daily Telegraph, June 16, 2001, Andy Martin, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 5; January 19, 2002, Helen Brown, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey.

Economist, July 14, 2001, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, pp. 6, 100.

Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, November-December, 2001, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 35.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), August 25, 1984.

Guardian (London, England), July 14, 2001, Hazel Mills, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 8.

Harper's Bazaar, November, 1992.

Herizons, winter, 2003, Barbara M. Freeman, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 39.

History Today, October, 2000, Daniel Snowman, "Antonia Fraser," p. 26; May, 2002, John Rogister, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 75.

House and Garden, March, 1985, "Lady Antonia's Secret Garden."

Houston Chronicle, January 6, 2002, Fritz Lanham, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 20.

Interview, September, 2001, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 130.

Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 1992, p. 1336; January 15, 1996, p. 104; March 15, 2001, review of Cromwell, p. 366; August 1, 2001, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 1087.

Kliatt Young Adult Paperback Book Guide, March, 1998, review of Faith and Treason, p. 32; September, 1998, review of The Warrior Queens (audio version), p. 69; September, 1999, review of Lives of the Kings and Queens of England (audio version), p. 64; November, 2002, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 52.

Library Journal, August, 2001, Bruce H. Webb, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 122; June 1, 2002, Gloria Maxwell, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey (audio version), p. 216.

Los Angeles Times, September 25, 1980; October 21, 2001, Cara Mia Dimassa, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 5.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, September 23, 1984; April 2, 1989.

Maclean's, December 31, 1979.

MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, autumn, 1989.

Nation, September 22, 1984, pp. 244-246.

New Republic, December 29, 1979.

New Statesman, August 30, 1996, p. 48; July 16, 2001, Michele Roberts, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 54.

Newsweek, September 10, 1984.

New Yorker, September 24, 2001, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 93.

New York Review of Books, April 11, 1985.

New York Times, November 13, 1979; November 14, 1984; October 13, 1985, p. 24; May 17, 1989, p. 15; April 9, 1989, p. 47; January 6, 1991; October 27, 1996; September 4, 2001, Mel Gussow, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. B1.

New York Times Book Review, November 18, 1984; April 2, 1989; January 6, 1991; December 20, 1992, p. 11; July 31, 1994, p. 28; February 8, 1998, review of Faith and Treason, p. 28; September 23, 2001, Francine du Plessix Gray, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 11; September 30, 2001, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 22.

New York Times Magazine, September 9, 1984, Mel Gussow, "Antonia Fraser: The Lady Is a Writer."

People, February 3, 1997, p. 35.

Publishers Weekly, June 19, 1987, pp. 104-105; February 5, 1996, p. 79; July 23, 2001, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 64.

Spectator, September 26, 1987, pp. 34-35; June 23, 2001, Douglas Johnson, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 37.

Time, October 17, 1969; September 17, 1984; December 21, 1992.

Times (London, England), May 3, 1984; October 7, 1988; October 15, 1988; March 3, 1990. Times Literary Supplement, July 3, 1969; May 27, 1977; June 8, 1984; November 11-17, 1988; July 20, 2001, Robert Gildea, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 31.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), April 2, 1989.

Virginia Quarterly Review, autumn, 2001, review of A Royal History of England, p. 121.

Vogue, January, 1993, p. 71; September, 2001, Amanda Foreman, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. 502.

Washington Post, October 7, 1984; October 7, 2001, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. T8; December 15, 2001, Alona Wartofsky, review of Marie Antoinette: The Journey, p. C1.

Washington Post Book World, March 12, 1989; April 21, 1996.*