
Price: £4.99
Publisher: Dispatch same day for order received before 12 noonGuaranteed packagingNo quibbles returns
Genre: Non Fiction
Age Range: 10-14 Middle/Secondary
Length: 128pp
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Elizabeth I
Review also includes:
Napoleon, Adrian Hadland, 160pp, 978-1904977100
Two new titles from Short Books maintain the high standard of this excellent biographical series. Moore writes with a novelist’s pen, creating an intimate portrait of the ‘Kingly Queen’. She describes Elizabeth I’s troubled childhood, her mother Anne Boleyn executed when she was just two, and her uneasy relationship with her pious Catholic sister Mary. By the time Elizabeth ascended the throne, she had lost her father, mother, sister, brother and her adored stepmother Katherine Parr. She became self-reliant as a matter of necessity, but her skill was to surround herself with wise counsellors whom she could trust. Elizabeth brought peace and prosperity to England, and money that might otherwise have been poured into costly foreign wars was spent instead on royal pageants, on lavish costumes and great houses. The reign of Gloriana is remembered as a golden age, during which she encouraged poets and playwrights like Spenser and Shakespeare, explorers like Raleigh and Drake. But she was also a shrewd politician, skilled in diplomacy and reluctant to make martyrs of those who opposed her. Her sense of duty and commitment to her role as monarch never wavered. Moore aptly quotes Elizabeth’s own words two years before her death: ‘And though you have had many mightier and wiser princes sitting in this seat, yet you never had nor shall have any that will love you better.’
Napoleon includes a fascinating note from the author about his sources and the vast number of books written about the life and times of the Bonaparte family (one book published every day since his death in 1821). And it is good in the year that we celebrate the bicentennial of Trafalgar to learn more of Nelson’s chief adversary. Born of tough Corsican stock, Napoleon wanted to be a soldier from the age of six. As a young boy he was sent on a scholarship to a military academy in France and subsequently graduated from the prestigious Ecole Militaire. It was a long slow climb up the ranks to become a Commander, but his unwavering courage and determination won him the respect of his men. Like Wellington he looked after his troops, saw that orphaned children were educated, and his men repaid him with loyalty. The French Army boasted ‘We do not march, we fly!’ We also learn that Napoleon had since childhood been fascinated by engineering and how things work. During his Egyptian Campaign he took with him a huge team of scientists, astronomers, architects and mapmakers, who built roads and put up windmills, planted vineyards and introduced a postal system, and even discovered the Rosetta Stone. The French fleet having been annihilated by Nelson, Napoleon returns to France and from this point on his fortunes are in the ascent. He becomes First Consul and eventually Emperor. None may criticise him and his campaigns become more and more ambitious, and ultimately unrealistic. The Grand Army retreats from Moscow in disarray. In the end, defeated, Napoleon is sent to ignominious exile on the remote rocky outcrop of St Helena. Napoleon it seems is too big a subject for this slim volume and you find yourself wanting to know more. But perhaps this is the sign of a good biography.