The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: 'The Most Happy'ISBN: 978-1-4051-3463-7
Paperback
480 pages
July 2005, Wiley-Blackwell
|
"Eric Ives has made it unnecessary for anyone else to
even make the attempt [to write a biography of Anne Boleyn]. The
Life and Death of Anne Boleyn is a stunning portrait of the
most controversial woman ever to have been queen consort of
England." The Independent on Sunday
"Eric Ives, a scholar utterly at home in early Tudor politics,
has been writing about the Boleyns for more than two decades. His
book represents a triumphant culmination of all that research,
presented with clarity, wit and human sympathy." Diarmaid
MacCulloch, The Telegraph
"Ives has written an excellent book on Anne Boleyn. Its great
strength is its sophisticated understanding of aristocratic women's
involvement in 16th-century politics, and precisely how this worked
in practice. ...Ives rises effectively to the human drama of Anne
Boleyn's life and in the process illuminates both the inner
workings of the Tudor court and its relationship to the larger
dramas of the Reformation and European politics." Jane
Stevenson, Scotland on Sunday
"The best full-length life of Anne Boleyn and a monument to
investigative scholarship." David Starkey
"Magnificently researched. Eric Ives has written the finest,
most accurate study of Anne Boleyn we are ever likely to possess.
He leaves no stone unturned in his quest to discover the truth.
Never has the historical Anne been so satisfyingly portrayed."
John Guy
"What is most exciting about The Life and Death of Anne
Boleyn is not just that it has confirmed and solidified Ives's
earlier work and presented it in a more accessible format. (Like
John Guy, Ives has discovered that the Starkey model really does
work and that popularisation -- 'to place among the people' --
should not be a term of opprobrium.) Rather, it is the development
in methodology, the indication that cultural studies and the
history of the book have provided us with new ways to evaluate
evidence, to interpret the past." The Spectator
"Eric Ives achieves the notable feat of combining magisterial
historical authority with a gripping style, and sets the reader's
mind buzzing with debate about the complex reasons behind the
astounding events of Anne's life." Times Literary
Supplement
"[Ives] delicately pieces together a believable identity ...
[and] gives, too, a lucid and coherent exposition of the
circumstances that led to Anne's death." The Guardian
"What Ives doesn't know ... about the high politics and court
life of Henry VIII's England will either never be known or is not
worth knowing. If there is a truth about Anne Boleyn's rise and
fall, he will tell it to us." London Review of Books
"There is no questioning the impact of Professor Eric Ives on
the historiography of Tudor England. There is a keen sense of the
evidence, of diplomatic affairs, of the minutiae of the record and
its context. The writing is fluent and well-paced, drawing the
reader along." The Tyndale Society Journal
"This is a moving and compelling account by an author who is the
absolute master of his subject. I read it with great excitement and
admiration." Susan Brigden, Lincoln College, Oxford
"Ives demonstrates triumphantly the potential of the
biographical approach in a pre-modern setting. He evinces a deep
empathy for his subject without ever becoming an apologist for her,
and ... he provides a narrative which is genuinely moving. He has
also given us a fully rounded and persuasive account of
Anne’s life as a whole, and its significance for
understanding the politics and political culture of the early Tudor
decades." Reviews in History
"The best book on Anne Boleyn ever written. This is a must for
all lovers of Tudor history, academics and general readers alike."
Alison Weir, BBC History Magazine Books of the Year
"Eric Ives has cut through the myths and misconceptions. The result surpasses all previous work.When Ives describes Anne herself. he is utterly convincing." Renaissance Quarterly