Poetic License or Privileged liars?

Looking back, they way royalty is presented to U.S. School children has a huge effect on why there is a fascination with the topic.


I still remember the chant, Divorced! beheaded! died! divorced! beheaded! survived! when we were studying Henry VIII. It worked, I can still remember the order of each poor woman's fate. At the time, Henry was seen in a more favorable light. Historians have released poor Anne Boleyn from most of what she was charged with. If you have, however, seen a recent television series called the Tudors, their work may have been for naught. The costumes were beautiful and the acting incredible. It perpetrated some of the more slanderous accusations about some of Henry's life and his wives that we now know to be false. 


Is this poetic license or as Honore de Balzac writes, "...it is plain that historians are privileged liars, who lend their pen to popular beliefs precisely as the newspapers of the day, or most of them, express the opinions of their readers..." - Catherine de Medici (translated from French to English by Katherine Prescott Wormeley)


Today's royal books are all about the Tudors. You be the judge!

Historical Fiction - Rewriting History Daily

The newest "hit" genre, historically based fiction is a true historian or scholar's worst nightmare.  Facets of the story become entangled loosely as fact. Readers who don't know the topic or study further are unable to gather which parts are "fiction" and which are true history.  Social media and online blogs don't often help either.

Writers have been writing historical fiction as long as books have been written. When historical fiction is a springboard for further research it is a blessing. When it's not it becomes a huge problem later when it becomes part of the myth (see Henry VIII).

I personally don't care for the genre (as I've written). You won't see it mentioned here or in my twitter picks of the day.

My daily twitter offerings will be three and simple.

I will pick a "Free" book available in e-format. These are copyright expired (or released) books available from various groups. If you have a program like Calibre you can search all of the various databases at once when you have a title or author. Most are available in any format or for any e-reader.

I will pick a historical book not available in e-format (specifically for Kindle). This will be a book I've contacted the publisher (or author about). If I hear back, you'll see it noted there. If you have a book you'd like to see (or have contact for the authors mentioned) please let me know.  In some cases the digital rights for the book were not firmly established (at least for these older books) and the rights may have reverted to the author. In this case, the publisher may not be interested in passing along interest or even have contact with the author or his/her estate.

I will also pick a book already on Kindle. Often if the book is on Kindle it will also be available for Nook and on Google Books for other readers. This won't always be the case in smaller print books about royalty (in particular when some authors only use small targeted hard copy) but it will be true for major authors.

Finding Long Lost Royal History in E Format

Publishers in the US are ignoring a large market for historical non fiction on royalty in ebook format. Yes there are lots of available historical novels or the gossip laden tomes on Diana, Princess of Wales. These are not the focus or purpose of this blog.

I'm interested in seeing those really great, expensive to ship over seas or 'hard to find in print' books that have historical importance. It is frustrating to see these books beginning to appear in the UK Amazon store for Kindle while being delayed more than a year or not appearing at all in the U.S. store.  Yes it's possible to hack your Kindle or provide an address in the UK but that is not the point. These books have historical value to everyone.

Why on Kindle? It's the only E-reader I own and Amazon has the better selection. We're just not there with a full cross platform database where you can purchase from anywhere.

I've had some success requesting books be made available for Kindle but just how publishers make decisions on what books to bring to the e-format is not clear. I've also had some luck contacting publishers and authors on my own but finding who owns the rights or how to contact them can be impossible or difficult. Not all publishing houses respond to inquiries, either.

Once you've requested a book it is almost impossible with Amazon to track if a book does become available. Books that are out of copyright are too often uncorrected OCR scans that have no table of contents and are harder to locate due to obscurity.

This blog and twitter account will document the progress on books I've researched and pass that on to other fans. I plan on looking only for books related to international royalty, biographies and memoirs only. If you have a book you'd like to add to the list in the genre, please comment!