#Jean Plaidy

[period-dramallama]

Jean Plaidy covers are so lovely and for WHAT

[shinyasahalo]

Writing a fem character as a villain by making her abusive toward her children, have her obsess over a man, and be vain about her appearance, makes her a boring villainess.

[m-andrade-87]

RECOMENDACIONES PARA EL #LEOAUTORASOCT 2024

Hola mis pequeños dragones, un año más os traigo algunas recomendaciones de libros escritos por mujeres para celebrar el mes de las autoras, y si, ya sé que hoy no es el día habitual de publicación, pero como ya dije en X (antiguo Twitter) y habréis podido comprobar este mes la celebración de Halloween (ya sabéis que la fiesta se celebra durante todo el mes en el blog) cae en jueves por lo que…

[angelfall33]

Mi Opinión: Madame Du Barry; Amante Real – Jean Plaidy 

[fideidefenswhore]

Your thoughts on the prolific author Jean Plaidy? Did you read any of her books? Do you have favorite/most hated? What do you think about her view on the Tudors, Boleyn's, Yorks, Stuarts, Hapsburgs, etc?

I have found them very dull, paint by the numbers, etc. Honestly I find most of the novels from that era of that era that way, though, it's part of why I can't stand Weir's, hers just feel like a complete emulation of Norah Loft's which are also that way for me. I feel like newer authors of the genre are more likely to take risks, even if all their creative decisions are not my favorite, I can respect that (Suzannah Dunn, Christopher Rae, etc).

To be more specific, as a Henry VIII Enjoyer, these novels miss the mark for me. He's always very one-dimensional, sadistic satyr meets bluff hail-fellow-well-met, extremely pliable and easy to manipulate; it's just very boring and not satisfying to read.

[poem-today]

A poem by Robert Burns (for Burns Night)

Oh Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast

Oh wert thou in the cauld blast, On yonder lea, on yonder lea, My plaidie to the angry airt, I’d shelter thee, I’d shelter thee: Or did misfortune’s bitter storms Around thee blaw, around thee blaw, Thy bield should be my bosom, To share it a’, to share it a’.

Or were I in the wildest waste, Sae black and bare, sae black and bare, The desart were a Paradise, If thou wert there, if thou wert there. Or were I monarch o' the globe, Wi thee to reign, wi thee to reign, The brightest jewel in my crown Wad be my queen, wad be my queen.

Robert Burns (1759-1796)

Glossary

lea = meadow airt = the direction, or quarter, of the wind blaw = blow bield = shelter

Note: Robert Burns composed this song in honour of Jessie Lewars (1778-1855), a friend of the family, who nursed him during his final illness and, from January 1796, helped his wife, Jean Armour, with their many children. As he was rarely able to leave his room, Jessy rendered invaluable services in helping Mrs. Burns nurse her husband. The poet could not repay her kindness in money so he asked what her favourite song was. She sang a song which was popular at the time and which told of a wren describing how he would never let the robin stay out in the cold if he had “an auld clout” to wrap him in. Burns wrote these new words to the same tune.

Image: "O, wert thou in the cauld blast" by the Scottish sculptor Ronald Rae is located in front of the Milton Keynes central railway station.

[anditendshowyoudexpect]

rereading Jean Plaidy's Queen Victoria series, i suddenly, although understandably, find myself in the mood to watch Lord Melbourne tell John Conroy to go choke on a dick. or "i bid you a good day", as they put it back then

[zippocreed501]

AUTHOR EXTRAORDINAIRE

'Respect your characters, even the ­minor ones. In art, as in life, everyone is the hero of their own particular story; it is worth thinking about what your minor characters' stories are, even though they may intersect only slightly with your protagonist's.'

'Treat writing as a job. Be disciplined. Lots of writers get a bit OCD-ish about this. Graham Greene famously wrote 500 words a day. Jean Plaidy managed 5,000 before lunch, then spent the afternoon answering fan mail. My minimum is 1,000 words a day – which is sometimes easy to achieve, and is sometimes, frankly, like shitting a brick, but I will make myself stay at my desk until I've got there, because I know that by doing that I am inching the book forward. Those 1,000 words might well be rubbish–they often are. But then, it is always easier to return to rubbish words at a later date and make them better.'

'Don't panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have regularly experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick succession, the derisive reviews, the friends' embarrassment, the failing career, the dwindling income, the repossessed house, the divorce . . .'

'. . . Working doggedly on through crises like these, however, has always got me there in the end. Leaving the desk for a while can help. Talking the problem through can help me recall what I was trying to achieve before I got stuck. Going for a long walk almost always gets me thinking about my manuscript in a slightly new way. And if all else fails, there's prayer. St Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers, has often helped me out in a crisis. If you want to spread your net more widely, you could try appealing to Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, too.'

Author Extraordinaire Sarah Waters

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

I loved the Friedrich Harding you posted!! Are there any books or authors for that time period you would recommend?

Oof. Not off the top of my head. I jave certain authors who write period books that I don't mind.

Carolly Erikson

Lauren Willig (pink carnation series is french revolution and I loved it)

CC Humphreys

Margaret George

Jean Plaidy

Robin Maxwell (Mademoiselle Boleyn is a fave of mine)

[celebrateeachnewday]

Artist Jane Crowther

My 2024 Booklist

Found in a Bookshop by Stephanie Butland The Merlin Trilogy by Mary Stewart The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods The Last List of Mabel Beaumont by Laura Pearson The Color Purple by Alice Walker Maskerade by Terry Pratchet (#18 of Discworld) The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey The Rainbow Trail by Zane Grey The Great Gatzby by F. Scott Fitzgerald Coraline by Neil Gaiman The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L'Engle Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones Murder Most Royal by Jean Plaidy A Man Called Peter by Catherine Marshall

[bforbetterthanyou]

I hate when I'm trying to find good historical fiction centered around the wives and I have to go through all the Allison Weir novels to find decent stuff

On a semi-related note, do you have any recommendations?

Yeah, for some reason the Tudor period attracts a lot of trash (both fiction and, frankly, non-fiction). I honestly have no idea why this is. I don’t know maybe because I’m American so I didn’t learn about the Tudors in school growing up (in the World History class I was required to take in high school our textbook had a single paragraph that mentioned Henry VIII and the Reformation and then Elizabeth I and the Spanish Armada: even when we studied Shakespeare we only read his plays as works of literature and learned nothing whatsoever about the time period he lived—for the longest time I actually didn’t know that Shakespeare lived in the Tudor period)…so maybe it has something to do with how the Tudors is taught in British schools (from what I’ve heard, apparently history in British schools is basically just Romans, Tudors, Nazis)

If you’re looking at fiction about the wives, specifically…shockingly there actually isn’t that much.

Jean Plaidy is always a good way to go. All of her novels were published in the 40s and 50s and they can be a bit overly romantic at times but they’re pre-when Tudor fiction started to get really trashy. The upcoming film Firebrand is based on a novel called Queen’s Gambit. I haven’t actually read the novel, but it’s one of the few that focuses on Kathryn Parr.

There are others not directly about the wives but that feature them like Adrienne Dillard’s The Raven’s Widow which is about Jane Boleyn post-May 1536.

Dead Queen’s Club is underrated.

Here are some others that are on my list (but I haven’t actually read them yet so can’t attest to their quality):

Anne & Henry by Dawn Ius

Anne Boleyn by Evelyn Anthony

The Kiss of the Concubine by Judith Arnopp

[period-dramallama]

I do owe Jean Plaidy something of an apology, I posted a long while back about her rushing her historical fiction books by writing so many. It seems her publisher required 2 Jean Plaidy novels and 1 Victoria Holt novel (gothic fiction) every year. No wonder it was microwaved history. Jean Plaidy novels were probably the wikipedia summary before Wikipedia summaries were a thing.

Honestly a false economy if you ask me. Better wait for something nuanced and researched than churn out forgettable historical fiction that will never be reread.

[brokenbluebouquet]

George Villiers 1st Duke of Buckingham in Fiction - a partial summary

CW: discussions of biphobia and homophobia in historical fiction and current historiography.

Feeling both inspired and outraged in equal measure by the upcoming Mary&George series, and having been fascinated with this remarkable man since forever, I have decided to post this partial overview of portrayals of George in fiction. The ones in bold are the ones I have read. Feel free to add to the list.

The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas 

The Honey and The Sting, Elizabeth Freemantle 

My Queen My Love, E.M Vidal 

Cavalier Queen, Fiona Mountain 

The Dangerous Kingdom Of Love, Neil Blackmore 

The Fallen Angel, Tracy Borman

Wife Of Great Buckingham, Hilda Lewis

Darling Of Kings, P J Womack

The Queens Dwarf, Ella March Chase

The Smallest Man, Frances Owen

The Spanish Match, Brennan Purcell

Captain Alatriste, Arturo Pérez-Reverte

The Cardinal and The Queen, Evelyn Anthony 

Earthly Joys, Philippa Gregory

Myself My Enemy, Jean Plaidy

Charles The King, Evelyn Anthony 

The Young And Lonely King, Jane Lane

The Fortunes Of Nigel, Walter Scott 

The Crowned Lovers, E Barrington

The Minion, Raphael Sabiniti 

The Murder In The Tower, Jean Plaidy 

A Net For Small Fishes, Lucy Jago 

The Arm and the Darkness, Taylor Caldwell

Les Gloires et les perils (?), Robert Merle

And a few I’m not so sure about where George is mentioned in passing: . 

Viper Wine, Hermionie Eyre

John Saturnalls Feast, Lawrence Norfolk 

Rebels and traitors, Lindsay Davis

The Assassin, Ronald Blythe 

Some observations, in no particular order:

Novels set mostly in James reign often have George as a rival to Robert Carr and will attempt to foreshadow how much worse he will be compared to Carr.

The ones that feature Henrietta Maria as Protagonist or at least POV character, where George is normally a baddie trying to sabotage HM and Charles I's relationship, and his death is often portrayed as some sort of salvation for HM. In these books George will often be lamed for things which were IRL Charles's fault such as the expulsion of HMs French household in 1626.

Three Musketeers is practically a category in its own right due to all the film/tv adaptions but has had relatively few clones or imitators in English which is something of a surprise

George is only a protagonist in one of these books (Darling of Kings, P J Womack) in the rest he's a cameo or a villain

Rumours that I suspect authors know is nonsense are repeated verbatim such as Tracy Borman's baseless speculation about G offing the Manners brothers, king James, and his rumoured involvement with the occult.

Georges relationships with James and Charles respectively are mentioned but not meaningfully explored. neither are any other personal relationships he had.

The insights and shifts in terms of post 1970s revisionist and post revisionist scholarship esp. Roger Lockyer's bio of George have not found their way into any fiction set in this era. Georges capability as an administrator and manager of patronage is more often than not totally absent.

the general view of George and why he's often shown in such a negative light is pretty much "well, he was willing to god knows what with that dirty old man James; who knows what other depravities he was capable of" and its female authors who really seem to lean into this, which I find fascinating and disturbing.

EDIT (can’t believe I forgot this) George’s murder in 1628 is always the result of some sort of aristocratic conspiracy rather than the act of terrorism it was IRL. I do get why authors do this - the amount of world building and foreshadowing needed to make it seem plausible rather than random in universe. However making it the result of personal grudge rather than ideological violence detracts from why it was so shocking and important.

[m-andrade-87]

LECTURAS Y PELÍCULAS VARIAS

Hola mis pequeños dragones, hoy, bajo un título tan genérico, os traigo un pequeño resumen de algunas cosas que he estado viendo y leyendo durante los últimos días y que, si bien no voy a dedicarle una entrada como tal, si quería hablar un poco sobre estas cosillas. Como siempre espero que alguna de estas cosas os resulte interesante. Empezamos BBC SIX WIVES WITH LUCY WORSLEY En este primer…

[pcppyy]

𝖌𝖔𝖉𝖉𝖊𝖘𝖘𝖊𝖘 𝖆𝖙 𝖍𝖆𝖒𝖕𝖙𝖔𝖓 𝖈𝖔𝖚𝖗𝖙 | penelope walsingham, as  persephone, goddess of spring. 

the attendance of penelope walsingham and her husband, thomas, was well documented in the romance novel ' the spymaster's bride ' written by fledgling fiction author diana suno, inspired heavily by other tudor romance novelists such as jean plaidy and phillipa gregory. it included a very vivid scene that was heavily based on the true events of the pageant of the king's in the year of 1559, where penelope acted out a sorrowful scene of leaving her mother, demeter, to be with the king of the underworld. the two women soon dissolved into giggles once the scene was complete. adorned in mauve silks, it was noted that penelope maintained a higher neckline then some of the other women in attendance, however if the fictional novel is to be believed the fabric was sheer whenever penelope shifted, revealing long dainty legs and bare thighs and glimpse of her breasts if stood in the right position ( one that her husband was notably glued to most of the night as they drank ). historians have remarked in brevity in various writings of thomas walsingham's life that it was unintentional irony for his wife to portray the goddess of spring, growth, and fertility, as according to the timeline it was around this period of time that she became pregnant with their third, and final, child. 

[dragonstepp]

Salove in pants

I have to admit to a not-so-secret love of men. I think men are the most glorious invention of god, or their maker. That doesn't mean I don't think women are beautiful as well, but I really love to love at a well-made man. I bought a throw from Amazon of Jamie (not Sam, not really) in the nude with his hand holding a plaidie in an appropriate place.

But I have a real wish, one I will never be able to fulfill. I would love to see Sam in the nude, completely. When I see photos of him standing, or lounging, in a well-made suit, my eyes go immediately to his crotch. I just can't help it.

But then my fave view of any male is if he has a great butt. No loose jeans for me. I need them well-filled out.

C