The Antonia Fraser Collection

Formats & Editions

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS

Mary, Queen of Scots passed her childhood in France and married the dauphin to become queen of France at the age of sixteen. Widowed less than two years later, she returned to Scotland as queen after an absence of thirteen years.

CROMWELL

No Englishman has made more impact on the history of his nation than Oliver Cromwell; few have been so persistently maligned in the folklore of history. The central purpose of Antonia Fraser's book is the recreation of his life and character, freed from the distortions of myth and Royalist propaganda.

KING CHARLES II

Spanning his life both before and after the Restoration, Antonia Fraser's lively and fascinating biography captures all the vitality of the man and the expansiveness of the age.

THE WEAKER VESSEL

An expert on the period, Antonia Fraser brings to life the many and various women she has encountered in her considerable research: governesses, milkmaids, fishwives, nuns, defenders of castles, courtesans, countesses, witches and widows.

THE WARRIOR QUEENS

Warrior Queens are those women who have both ruled and led in war. It examines how Antonia Fraser's heroines have held and wrestled the reins of power from their (consistently male) adversaries.

THE SIX WIVES OF HENRY VIII

The six wives of Henry VIII: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Catherine Parr. They may have been victims of Henry's obsession with a male heir, but they were not willing victims.

THE GUNPOWDER PLOT

Dramatically recreating the conditions and motives that surrounded the fateful night of 5 November 1605, she unravels the tangled web of religion and politics that spawned the plot.

MARIE ANTOINETTE

Antonia Fraser examines her influence over the king, Louis XVI, the accusations and sexual slurs made against her, her patronage of the arts which enhanced French cultural life, her imprisonment, the death threats made against her, her trial and her eventual execution by guillotine in 1793.

LOVE AND LOUIS XIV

Antonia Fraser brilliantly explores the relationships which existed between the Sun King and the women in his life.

Antonia Fraser

Antonia Fraser is the author of many widely acclaimed historical works, including the biographies MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS (a 40th anniversary edition was published in May 2009), CROMWELL: OUR CHIEF OF MEN, KING CHARLES II and THE GUNPOWDER PLOT (CWA Non-Fiction Gold Dagger; St Louis Literary Award). She has written five highly praised books which focus on women in history, THE WEAKER VESSEL: WOMEN'S LOT IN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ENGLAND (Wolfson Award for History, 1984), THE WARRIOR QUEENS: BOADICEA'S CHARIOT, THE SIX WIVES OF HENRY VIII, MARIE ANTOINETTE: THE JOURNEY (Franco-British Literary Prize 2001), which was made into a film by Sofia Coppola in 2006 and most recently LOVE AND LOUIS XIV: THE WOMEN IN THE LIFE OF THE SUN KING. She was awarded the Norton Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2000. Antonia Fraser was made DBE in 2011 for her services to literature. Her most recent book is MUST YOU GO , celebrating her life with Harold Pinter, who died on Christmas Eve 2008. She lives in London.

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