Description
Book SynopsisAs the last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne (1665-1714) received the education thought proper for a princess, reading plays and poetry in English and French while learning dancing, singing, acting, drawing, and instrumental music. As an adult, she played the guitar and the harpsichord, danced regularly, and took a connoisseur''s interest in all the arts. In this comprehensive interdisciplinary biography, James Winn tells the story of Anne''s life in new breadth and detail, and in unprecedented cultural context. Winn shows how poets, painters, and musicians used the works they made for Anne to send overt and covert political messages to the queen, the court, the church, and Parliament. Their works also illustrates the pathos of Anne''s personal life: the loss of her mother when she was six, her troubled relations with her father and her sister, James II and Mary II, and her own doomed efforts to produce an heir. Her eighteen pregnancies produced only one child who lived past infancy; his dea
Trade Reviewriveting, indeed unputdownable, study of politics and the arts in her era * Essays in Criticism *
Winn, Professor of English at Boston Univeristy, has produced a book of unparalleled depth and insight about a period still relatively neglected owing to the taint of Whig history with which it remains associated. He writes with the fluency, but not the Whig bias, of Macaulay; his historical research on all aspects of the period, including its political turmoil, is impeccable, and yet his writing has essayistic clarity throughout. * Ophelia Field, The Times Literary Supplement *
Winn's volume impresses by its erudition in literary matters and its passion for music * Burlington Magazine *
now she has found a champion to stand up for her and put the record straight * Darlington, Ayecliffe and Sedgfield Advertiser *
[Winn's] talent for descriptive prose and deep knowledge of literature, music, architecture, interior design and other allied fields ... make this book a rare treat, as he immerses the reader in the life, manners and preoccupations of the period. * Wall Street Journal *
...it is above all through his mastery of the literature of the period, and his ear for its cadences and echoes, that Winn lures us into the texture of the age. * Blair Warden, Literary Review *
Winn is an ace at picking up on subtleties in the period's music and poetry ... his writing and commentary, along with the musical samples found on the accompanying website, bring the queen's history to life. * Publishers Weekly *
this book is a sumptuous intellectual feast as well as an aesthetic delight, written by one of our most informed and acute readers of post-Restoration culture. * Brean S. Hammond, Modern Language Review *
Winn skillfully paints the court, its players, and its culture -- from thanksgiving services to birthday celebrations -- in vivid detail. * Mary K. Brantl, The Historian *
Table of ContentsAbout the Companion Website List of Illustrations List of Musical Examples Preface 1. A Little Star 2. Hail, Welcome Prince 3. Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem 4. She Reigns without a Crown 5. Sweet Remembrance Shall Remain 6. Entirely English 7. Dominion over the Mighty 8: What Fruits from our Divisions Spring 9: The Breath of our Nostrils 10: To Fix a Lasting Peace on Earth 11: All a Nation Could Require Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
