Cliquer sur une vignette pour aller sur Google Books.
Chargement... A Stain in the Blood: The Remarkable Voyage of Sir Kenelm Digby (2016)par Joe Moshenska, Joe Moshenska
Aucun Chargement...
Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. An excellent book - I'd never heard of of him until a friend on Facebook recommended the book to me. Well written and researched. ( ) This biography of an unusual man at a fascinating point in history has much of interest in it and I am glad I read it. But it left me feeling somewhat frustrated. It doesn't engage in the way you'd expect from historical fiction but it isn't analytical enough to be serious historical scholarship. Although the writer isn't naive enough to represent him as some sort of saint, he is nevertheless fairly uncritical and over sympathetic towards Kenelm, with the result that we don't get any real sense of the impact on him of the conflicts of the age. 12 August 2017.
Moshenska's research is transparent and extensive. He has immersed himself in Kenelm's writings, uncovered new letters and scrutinized the language to produce a fascinating and innovative study of early modern self-fashioning. A Stain in the Blood is a history full of enticing fictions, centred on a strange and solitary figure whose life, a doomed quest for liberating reinvention, was both tragic and unfulfilled. In some ways as heroic as Digby himself, Moshenska has defied the tyranny of genre, and made his own absorbing narrative from which, perhaps, others will in due course derive either a full-blown film script, or possibly a more conventional historical monograph. Prix et récompenses
SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY and THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY 'A thrilling account' The Times 'As heroic as Digby himself, Moshenska has defied the tyranny of genre and made his own absorbing account' Observer 'A master storyteller. Full of exquisite details, but with the grandest themes... this is a gripping adventure story'Zia Haider Rahman 'A brilliant account of one of the seventeenth century's most dashing lives'Ruth Scurr 'Gripping and extraordinary'Ann Wroe On the 16th of August 1628, five battle-scarred English ships sailed into the harbour of the Greek island of Milos. Dropping anchor, the 25-year-old captain banqueted with the local lord before sitting down to write an account of his journey - an account that would transform him entirely. Sir Kenelm Digby was one of the most remarkable Englishmen who ever lived- a trusted advisor to the King, but the sworn enemy of the all-powerful Duke of Buckingham; a pioneering philosopher and scientist, but committed to the occult arts of alchemy and astrology; a friend not only of Ben Jonson, Thomas Hobbes and van Dyck, but even Oliver Cromwell. He was also widely known as the 'son of a traytor and husband of a whore'- a man who witnessed his father's gruesome execution for high treason as a Gunpowder Plotter, and the lover of the most celebrated beauty of the age, Venetia Stanley. In an attempt to clear his name, and on a quest for personal glory, Digby assembled a fleet and set sail for the Mediterranean- a world of pirate cities and ancient ruins where people, ideas and exotic goods moved freely between languages and nations. His journey - encompassing fevers, mutiny, piracy, daring rescues and heroic sea battles - is a great and terribly overlooked adventure, and a prism through which to view England, and all of Europe, during one of the most pivotal periods in its history. A Stain in the Bloodis the story of an extraordinary life, and of a journey that helped to shape a nation. It is a revelatory first work of non-fiction by one of the brightest young writers and thinkers of today. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
Discussion en coursAucunCouvertures populaires
Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)942.062092History and Geography Europe England and Wales England 1603–1714, House of Stuart and Commonwealth periods Charles I 1625-49Classification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
Est-ce vous ?Devenez un(e) auteur LibraryThing. |