McLynn, Frank

(F.J. McLynn, Frank J. McLynn)

PERSONAL: Education: Oxford University, B.A.; University of London, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, 4th Fl., New York, NY 10003.

CAREER: Writer, historian, and biographer. University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland, visiting professor.

AWARDS, HONORS: Cheltenham Prize for Literature, 1985, for The Jacobite Army in England, 1745: The Final Campaign; fellow, Goldsmiths College, University of London, 2000–01; associate fellow, Royal Literary Fund, 2001–02.

WRITINGS:

Invasion: From the Armada to Hitler, 1588–1945, Routledge (New York, NY), 1987.

Unpopular Front: Jews, Radicals and Americans in the Jacobite World View, Royal Stuart Society (Huntingdon, England), 1988.

Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth-century England, Routledge (New York, NY), 1989.

Stanley: The Making of an African Explorer (also see below), Constable (London, England), 1989, Scarborough House (Chelsea, MI), 1990.

Burton: Snow upon the Desert, Murray (London, England), 1990.

(Editor) Richard Burton, Of No Country: An Anthology of the Works of Sir Richard Burton, illustrated by Howard Phipps, Scribner (London, England), 1990.

From the Sierras to the Pampas: Richard Burton's Travels in the Americas, 1860–69, Century (London, England), 1991.

(Editor) Into the Dark Continent: The Travels of Henry Morton Stanley, Folio Society (London, England), 2002.

Wagons West: The Epic Story of America's Overland Trails, Grove Press (New York, NY), 2002.

1759: The Year Britain became Master of the World, Atlantic Monthly Press (New York, NY), 2004.

Stanley: Dark Genius of African Exploration (contains Stanley: Sorcerer's Apprentice and Stanley: The Making of an African Explorer), Pimlico (London, England), 2004.

Lionheart and Lackland: King Richard, King John, and the Wars of Conquest, Jonathan Cape (London, England), 2006.

AS F.J. MCLYNN

France and the Jacobite Rising of 1745, Edinburgh University Press (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1981.

The Jacobite Army in England, 1745: The Final Campaign, Donald (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1983.

The Jacobites, Routledge (Boston, MA), 1985.

Charles Edward Stuart: A Tragedy in Many Acts, Routledge (New York, NY), 1988, published as Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart, Pimlico (London, England), 2003.

Stanley: Sorcerer's Apprentice (also see below), Constable (London, England), 1989.

Fitzroy Maclean, John Murray (London, England), 1992.

Hearts of Darkness: The European Exploration of Africa, Hutchinson (London, England), 1992, Carroll and Graf (New York, NY), 1993.

(Editor) Famous Letters: Messages and Thoughts That Shaped Our World, Reader's Digest Association (Pleasantville, NY), 1993.

Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography, Hutchinson (London, England), 1993, Random House (New York, NY), 1994.

(Editor) Famous Trials: Cases That Made History, Reader's Digest Association (Pleasantville, NY), 1995.

Carl Gustav Jung: A Biography, Bantam Press (London, England), 1996, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Napoleon: A Biography, Jonathan Cape (London, England), 1997, Arcade (New York, NY), 2002.

1066: The Year of the Three Battles, Jonathan Cape (London, England), 1998.

Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution, Jonathan Cape (London, England), 2000, Carroll and Graf (New York, NY), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS: British historian Frank McLynn has written a number of biographies and historical studies, many of which relate to themes of exploration. Stanley: The Making of an African Explorer chronicles the life of Henry Morton Stanley, whom a reviewer for the Economist called one of Africa's greatest explorers. This biography graphically details Stanley's first two voyages to Africa, the first to find fellow explorer and his idol, David Livingstone, and the second which took him down the Congo to the mouth of the river. McLynn paints a vivid picture of this explorer's well-known savagery during these adventures and attempts to explain his brutal behavior and disregard for life through a look at his early life as a poor, neglected, and illegitimate child in Wales. Stanley: Sorcerer's Apprentice is a follow-up to the first volume and concentrates on Stanley's Emin Pasha expedition, his third and last voyage to Africa, and also seeks psychological explanations for the explorer's decision making and conduct.

Burton: Snow upon the Desert is a biography of the Victorian explorer, linguist, and writer Sir Richard Burton. McLynn describes Burton as a scholarly man who immersed himself in the cultures he wrote about, including Indian, Arabian, African, and even American Mormon. McLynn notes Burton's particular interest in the sexuality of each of the peoples he studied. The colorful life of this adventurer, who brought back and translated 1,001 Nights of the Kamasutra, interested McLynn enough for him to compile an anthology of Burton's writings titled Of No Country: An Anthology of the Works of Sir Richard Burton.

Hearts of Darkness: The European Exploration of Africa chronicles British Victorian-era exploration of the African continent. It begins by tracing the routes of several of the most famous names, including Stanley, Livingstone, and Samuel Baker. McLynn also tackles a number of the sociopolitical issues tied up with these events in history, such as animal conservation, the impact of Europeans on African society, the outbreak of disease, and the reputations of the explorers in Africa versus their homeland.

As an extension of his interest in explorers, McLynn wrote a biography of the adventurous author Robert Louis Stevenson. Approximately half of Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography describes Stevenson's sea journeys to places like Hawaii, Samoa, and the South Pacific. The remainder of the book is dedicated to personal details of the author's life, such as his relationship with his sickly wife, Fanny Osbourne, and to a defense of the sometimes discounted works by the author. Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, was an extremely prolific writer during his short lifetime (he died in his mid-thirties).

McLynn chose a different kind of subject when he wrote a biography of the psychologist and theoretician Carl Gustav Jung. Carl Gustav Jung: A Biography follows this student of Freud from his unhappy childhood, through the time of his studies with his famed teacher, and on to his break with Freud in 1912, as he developed his own, now well-known theories. McLynn includes discussions of Jung's seminal works about his key ideas, such as the collective unconscious, the role of archetypes in the human psyche, the driving urge for power, and contrasexuality, along with descriptions of the psychologist's own controversial personality. A womanizer, egotist, and alleged anti-Semite, Jung is pictured in this book as a man with an abominable dark side that colored all his relationships. Reviewing the biography for Booklist, Donna Seaman praised McLynn's work, writing that "complex, controversial, and profoundly influential, Jung presents the biographer with Herculean tasks, and McLynn's performance is heroic."

Napoleon: A Biography was published on the occasion of the two hundredth anniversary of Napoleon's reign. This account of Napoleon's career and campaigns analyzes the power-driven emperor's efficacy as a leader as he tried to expand his dynasty at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. Despite Napoleon's many victories, Philip Mansel wrote in the Independent that the author's "strength lies in the skepticism with which he treats Napoleon's achievements, even the Emperor's claims to military genius." McLynn, in fact, outlines many of Napoleon's more unsound decisions, such as choosing his brother Joseph to reign as King of Spain, a decision that led to the Peninsular War.

Appearing in 1998, 1066: The Year of the Three Battles takes a close look at an important year in the medieval history of England when a new Frankish king took power, succeeding Edward the Confessor. McLynn focuses on the three major players: Duke William of Normandy, Earl Harold Godwinson, and King Harald Hardrada of Norway. Two years later, McLynn published Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution, a biography of Mexican revolutionaries Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, as well as a history of the Mexican revolution.

Wagons West: The Epic Story of America's Overland Trails is McLynn's account of the crossing of North America by early pioneers seeking land and adventure. Covering settlers such as Jim Bridger, Charles Fremont, and the Donner Party, as well as lesser known individuals, the author concentrates his history on the years 1840 to 1849. Booklist reviewer Jay Freeman felt that "McLynn covers familiar ground, but he covers it well." A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote that "rarely has a book so wonderfully brought to life the riveting tales of Americans's trek to the Pacific."

In 1759: The Year Britain became Master of the World, McLynn argues that the events of that year forever changed the history of the world. It was the fourth year of the Seven Years War, also known as the French and Indian War, during which the British defeated the French in locations that included Canada, Germany, India, and the West Indies, establishing their navy as dominant on the high seas. He also writes that events of that year were significant to the beginning of the American and French revolutions. A Kirkus Reviews contributor described this history as "a zealous attack on a jam-packed moment of world change." A Publishers Weekly reviewer predicted: "McLynn's book will enthrall all lovers of history told well."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

African Affairs, October, 1993, A.H.M. Kirk-Greene, review of Hearts of Darkness: The European Exploration of Africa, pp. 625-626.

Booklist, August, 1997, Donna Seaman, review of Carl Gustav Jung: A Biography, p. 1853; November 15, 2002, Jay Freeman, review of Wagons West: The Epic Story of America's Overland Trails, p. 566.

Commonweal, May 5, 1995, Suzanne Keen, review of Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography, p. 22.

Economist, November 11, 1989, review of Stanley: The Making of an African Explorer, p. 110; March 9, 1991, review of Stanley: Sorcerer's Apprentice, p. 88; June 19, 1993, review of Robert Louis Stevenson, p. 95.

English Historical Review, April, 1999, Jeremy Black, review of Napoleon: A Biography, p. 471; April, 2001, Samuel Brunk, review of Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution, p. 509.

Independent, December 13, 1997, Philip Mansel, review of Napoleon.

Insight on the News, February 13, 1995, Daniel Mark Epstein, review of Robert Louis Stevenson, pp.26-27.

Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 2002, review of Wagons West, p. 1594; December 15, 2004, review of 1759: The Year Britain became Master of the World, p. 1186.

Publishers Weekly, May 31, 1991, review of Burton: Snow upon the Desert, pp. 63-64; October 31, 1994, review of Robert Louis Stevenson, p. 48; October 14, 2002, review of Wagons West, p. 71; November 8, 2004, review of 1759, p. 42.