Emperor

Emperor

Author: Geoffrey Parker

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2019-06-25

Total Pages: 663

ISBN-13: 030024102X

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This “elegant and engaging” biography dramatically reinterprets the life and reign of the sixteenth-century Holy Roman Emperor: “a masterpiece” (Susannah Lipscomb, Financial Times). The life of Emperor Charles V (1500–1558), ruler of Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and much of Italy and Central and South America, has long intrigued biographers. But capturing the nature of this elusive man has proven notoriously difficult—especially given his relentless travel, tight control of his own image, and the complexity of governing the world’s first transatlantic empire. Geoffrey Parker, one of the world’s leading historians of early modern Europe, has examined the surviving written sources in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Latin, and Spanish, as well as visual and material evidence. In Emperor, he explores the crucial decisions that created and preserved this vast empire, analyzes Charles’s achievements within the context of both personal and structural factors, and scrutinizes the intimate details of the ruler’s life for clues to his character and inclinations. The result is a unique biography that interrogates every dimension of Charles’s reign and views the world through the emperor’s own eyes.


Prince Charles

Prince Charles

Author: Sally Bedell Smith

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2017-04-04

Total Pages: 657

ISBN-13: 0812988434

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “masterly account” (The Wall Street Journal) of the life and loves of King Charles III, Britain’s first king since 1952, shedding light on the death of Diana, his marriage to Camilla, and his preparations to take the throne Sally Bedell Smith returns once again to the British royal family to give us a new look at the man who was the oldest heir to the throne in more than three hundred years. This vivid, eye-opening biography—the product of four years of research and hundreds of interviews with palace officials, former girlfriends, spiritual gurus, and more, some speaking on the record for the first time—is the first authoritative treatment of Charles’s life. Prince Charles brings to life the real man, with all of his ambitions, insecurities, and convictions. It begins with his lonely childhood, in which he struggled to live up to his father’s expectations and sought companionship from the Queen Mother and his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten. It follows him through difficult years at school, his early love affairs, his intellectual quests, his entrepreneurial pursuits, and his intense search for spiritual meaning. It tells of the tragedy of his marriage to Diana; his eventual reunion with his true love, Camilla; and his relationships with William, Kate, Harry, and his grandchildren. Ranging from his glamorous palaces to his country homes, from his globe-trotting travels to his local initiatives, Smith shows how Prince Charles possesses a fiercely independent spirit and yet spent more than six decades waiting for his destined role, living a life dictated by protocols he often struggles to obey. With keen insight and the discovery of unexpected new details, Smith lays bare the contradictions of a man who is more complicated, tragic, and compelling than we knew, until now.


Charles II

Charles II

Author: Antonia Fraser

Publisher: George Weidenfeld & Nicholson

Published: 1993-01-01

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9780297832218

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The story of King Charles II is one of enduring fascination. The golden childhood of the boy Prince in the Van Dyck pictures gave way to an adventurous youth in Civil War England and abroad, ending traumatically when his father was executed in 1649. Charles II, King at eighteen, succeeded to `nothing but the name'. After his valiant attempt to regain the throne was defeated by Cromwell at Worcester, the King made his epic escape - to years of exile, poverty and humiliation in Europe. The `miraculous' Restoration ushered in a reign coloured by a series of equally dramatic events: the Great Plague, the Fire of London, two Dutch Wars, the bizarre Popish Plot, and finally the efforts of the Whigs to exclude his Catholic brother James from the succession, culminating in the King's unexpected triumph over them at the Oxford Parliament of 1681. A lover of women, passionate planner of parks and palaces and friend of the arts, this was the man who was to overcome the many problems of his reign and die not only in control of his country but in the affection of his countrymen. In this meticulously researched biography, Antonia Fraser offers important judgements and reassessments on central questions of the reign, such as Charles's relationships, his attitude to Kingship, his patriotism and his religious beliefs. Above all she has succeeded in writing a totally compelling narrative, both moving and exciting, and showing all the skills and insights which have secured her place as one of the foremost biographers of our time. `A rich feast of instruction, drama and entertainment' TLS `The fullest and most sophisticated account of the most charming and approachable of English Kings' OBSERVER


Charles: The Heart of a King

Charles: The Heart of a King

Author: Catherine Mayer

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2015-02-05

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0753550806

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The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller 'Breathtaking' The Times '[The book that] made headlines around the world.' Independent The former Prince of Wales has lived his whole life in the public eye, yet he remains an enigma. He was born to be king, but he aims much higher. A landmark publication, Charles: The Heart of a King reveals Prince Charles in all his complexity: the passionate views that mean he will never be as remote and impartial as his mother; the compulsion to make a difference and the many and startling ways in which the Prince and now King of the United Kingdom and fifteen other realms has already made his mark. The book offers fresh and fascinating insights into the first marriage that did so much to define him and an assessment of his relationship with the woman he calls, with unintended accuracy, his 'dearest wife': Camilla, now Queen Consort. We see Charles as a father and a friend, a serious figure and a joker. Life at court turns out to be full of hidden dangers and unexpected comedy. Now, updated and revised with a new preface and two new chapters - covering details of Harry and Meghan's exit and its implications, the cash-for-honours scandal, Prince Andrew, and more - this significant study reveals a monarchy threatened and a man in sight of happiness yet still driven by anguish and a remarkable belief system, a charitable entrepreneur, activist, agitator and avatar of the Establishment who just as often tilts against it. Based on multiple interviews with his friends and courtiers, palace insiders and critics, and rare access to Charles himself, before his kingship, this biography explores the Prince's philanthropy and his compulsive interventionism, his faith, his significant impact on politics and the philosophy that means when he seeks harmony he sometimes creates controversy. Gripping, at times astonishing, often laugh-out-loud, this is a royal biography unlike any other. 'A must-read ... this important book is nothing short of a manual to our future King's world-view' GQ 'A sustained piece of higher journalism' Independent


Ridiculous!

Ridiculous!

Author: David Kaufman

Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 548

ISBN-13: 9781557836373

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(Applause Books). From his first unscripted appearance on an Off-Broadway stage in the revolutionary 1960s to the frontpage news of his death from AIDS in 1987 at age 44, Charles Ludlam embodied and helped to engender the upheavals of his time. The astonishing life and legacy of this force to be reckoned with are at last revealed in RIDICULOUS! , a literary biography of an American comic genius. After founding the Ridiculous Theatrical Company in 1967, Ludlam sustained an ever-shifting troupe of bohemian players through two decades of perennially daunting circumstances by writing 29 plays plays that he starred in and directed as well. While Ludlam's work has become increasingly popular at regional theatres, on college campuses, and on stages throughout the world, his gender-bending theories and wide-ranging cultural impact have reached far beyond Bette Midler, the original cast members of Saturday Night Live and the countless other artists he influenced during his abbreviated lifetime. Like his early plays, Ludlam's life was rife with the sex, drugs and creative experimentation that characterized the freewheeling '60s and '70s. Based on a decade of research and interviews with more than 150 people who knew or worked with Ludlam including all of the major players in his troupe and seven of his lovers RIDICULOUS! recreates the dramatic life of an inimitable and subversive theatrical master with you-are-there intensity. Winner of the LAMBDA Literary Award for Biography and the Theatre Library Association Award for Outstanding Theatre Book of the Year "David Kaufman makes a persuasive case for Ludlam's being a genius ... As a record of Ludlam's life and the theatrical world in which he was both guru and grandmaster, this book is informed and passionate." Mel Gussow, The New York Times "A fascinating portrait of an authentic stage genius and the New York avant-garde scene in which he toiled with such demented and dedicated diligence." Playbill "The phenom who inspired everyone from Bette Midler and Madeline Kahn to Tony Kushner and Paul Rudnick was no box of chocolates which, as reading experiences go, makes his story all the sweeter." Vanity Fair "This is one helluva piece of work." Marilyn Stasio, Variety.com


Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Author: Claire Tomalin

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 633

ISBN-13: 0141036931

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Chronicles the life of the nineteenth-century literary master from the challenges he faced as the imprisoned son of a profligate father, his rise to one of England's foremost novelists, and the personal demons that challenged his relationships.


American Character

American Character

Author: Mark Thompson

Publisher: Arcade Publishing

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 9781559705509

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Charles Fletcher Lummis began his spectacular career in 1884 by walking from Ohio to start a new job at the three-year old Los Angeles Times. By the time of his death in 1928, the 3,500 mile "tramp across the continent" was just a footnote in his astonishingly varied career: crusading journalist, author of nearly two dozen books, editor of the influential political and literary magazine Out West, Los Angeles city librarian, preserver of Spanish missions, and Indian rights gadfly. Lummis both embodied and defined our vision of the West, and of America itself.


A Heart Set Free

A Heart Set Free

Author: Arnold A. Dallimore

Publisher:

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13:

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In the heroic days of the 18th century revival in Britain, Charles Wesley, the supreme poet of Christian experience, was a worthy third to George Whitefield and his own elder brother John. Arnold Dallimore understands Charles well, and tells his story inspiringly.