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Ronald Bassett (1924–1996)

Auteur de Hms Sheffield: The Life and Times of Old Shiny

22 oeuvres 216 utilisateurs 11 critiques

A propos de l'auteur

Œuvres de Ronald Bassett

Witchfinder General (1966) 29 exemplaires
Battle-Cruisers: A History 1908-48 (1981) 22 exemplaires
The Tinfish Run (1977) 21 exemplaires
Tune That They Play (1973) 12 exemplaires
Dando and the Summer Palace (1972) 11 exemplaires
The Neptune Landing (1979) 11 exemplaires
Dando on Delhi Ridge (1971) 11 exemplaires
The Pierhead Jump (1978) 10 exemplaires
Dando and the Mad Emperor (1867) 8 exemplaires
Blood of an Englishman (1977) 8 exemplaires
The Guns of Evening (1980) 7 exemplaires
Kill the Stuart (1970) 7 exemplaires
The Carthaginian (1963) 6 exemplaires
The Pompeians (1965) 5 exemplaires

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Matthew Hopkins, the self-termed 'witchfinder general' who executed over 100 victims during the Civil War, was clearly insane but for two years traded on the social unrest and religious hypocrisy of the era. Bassett portrays Hopkins as a coward and bully with delusions of grandeur, claiming to be a lawyer and a gentleman, who tortured elderly, infirm, poor and uneducated women into confessions of witchcraft and heresy on the accusations of spiteful neighbours. The abuse of Elizabeth Clarke, one of Hopkins' first victims in Manningtree, Essex, really disturbed me, far more so than the same account in The Manningtree Witches by A K Blakemore!

Bassett alternates between Hopkins' witch trials and the progress of the Civil War, which provides a realistic and violent historical setting but didn't hold my interest. He also pits one of Cromwell's soldiers, Captain Ralph Margery, against Hopkins but over the 'defilement' of Margery's (fictional) fiancée rather than the injustice of the witchfinder's actions, which I found to be a rather weak subplot. Bassett also draws on the satisfying rumour that Hopkins was subject to his own 'swimming test' and then hanged, when in fact he likely succumbed to tuberculosis and died at home in Manningtree.

Hopkins' character can be summed up by the accusation against 'false' witchfinders he delivers: 'That is why it is a dangerous business to employ so-called witchfinders who are concerned only with filling their purses, who are likely to torture and lie to provide evidence — and are thus no more than hired murderers, even though their mouths are filled with the scriptures and sanctimonious proverbs.' Hopkins profited from his brief reign of terror throughout Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, charging twenty shillings for 'cleansing' towns and villages of defenceless but ill-favoured women - also writing a pamphlet on his exploits titled 'A Discovery of Witches' - and 'retired' without any form of reprisal, so Bassett at least delivers a fictional sense of justice for poor women like Elizabeth Clarke.
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Signalé
AdonisGuilfoyle | 3 autres critiques | Oct 19, 2022 |
In 1857, many people in India became tired of their treatment under the rule of the British East India Company and organized a revolt. It started in Meerut and spread through north-west India. This novel is an excellent view of what happened when the revolt broke out as the details are historically accurate. It is fiction but the author has included a very extensive bibliography about this period in India.

The protagonist is Joseph Dando and through his eyes and mind we learn what it was like to be a soldier in the Victorian army. It was not a pleasant life but it was a way to escape prison, poverty or family commitments. Bassett describes a soldier's life in camp, on the march and in moments of leisure. We learn about his uniform, his weapons and his food and the harsh treatment dished out by the officers. It was not a pleasant life.

Initially, the rebellion itself was vicious, deadly for English men, women and children who were slaughtered in their homes and in the streets. The British retaliation was equally nasty. Eventual victory was achieved because the rebels were poorly organized and did not have a plan for after their victory and large parts of India did not participate and even helped the British defeat the uprising.

As the novel progresses, we learn the details of Dando's upbringing through flashbacks which in turn teach us much about life in early Victorian England before the reformers started to bring about social change. Life for the poor was ugly and dangerous.
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Signalé
lamour | 1 autre critique | Feb 19, 2021 |
Battlecruisers, by Ronald Bassett, is a fascinating look back at what is probably the most understood and certainly misused warship in naval history. At first glance, the concept makes perfect sense; with the cost of dreadnaughts escalating at an alarming rate, the idea of a ship with dreadnaught sized weapons and light cruiser armour that would be able to zip in amongst the ungainly battleships and tear them asunder, was an admiral’s dream. Of course, once reality reared its ugly head, it turned out that these ships often found themselves in battles with forces that refused to go along with that plan.

The best/worst example of this has to be what happened to HMS Hood. Pride of the British Royal Navy, and the epitome of the battlecruiser concept, she was easily destroyed, with almost her entire crew, by the German heavy cruiser, Prinz Eugen. Previously, in the First World War, during the Battle of Jutland, British battlecruisers suffered heavily under the battleship guns because as most often happened, they were thrown into the battleship line, meaning their speed advantage came to naught.

Ronald Bassett has presented an interesting study on this class of ship. Clearly well researched, the book would be a proper addition to any naval historian’s collection. He also manages to take what could have been a lot of pages filled with boring information, and turned it into a book that holds your interest.

Reviewed by Daniel L Little – January 29, 2018 - www.daniellittle.com
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Signalé
Sturgeon | Jan 29, 2018 |
Gritty WW2 sea fiction. Aptly portrays, the HMS with all of its service inequalities and inadequacies. Sailors on the barely adequate British escort ships live in squalor and frequently die because an admiral, in this case, Dudley Pound, makes a serious mistake that disperses a convoy. The Kriegsmarine destroys most of the convoy and its escorts.
½
 
Signalé
jamespurcell | 1 autre critique | Aug 16, 2016 |

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Statistiques

Œuvres
22
Membres
216
Popularité
#103,224
Évaluation
½ 3.4
Critiques
11
ISBN
44
Langues
1

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