Tea at Trianon: Favorite Historical Novelists

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Favorite Historical Novelists

Here is a list of my top ten favorite historical novelists, as requested by a reader:

1) R.H. Benson
2)Mother Magdalen Taylor
3)Baroness Orczy
4) Anya Seton
5) Norah Lofts
6)Jean Plaidy
7)Thomas B. Costain
8)Daphne DuMaurier
9) Ford Madox Ford
10) Sir Walter Scott Share

5 comments:

Anonymous said...: I absolutely love Eleanor Hibbert (aka Jean Plaidy)! It's wonderful to see some of her novels back in print again!; May 1, 2007 at 9:34:00 PM EDT
Dymphna said...: Jean Plaidy was my childhood favorite. I devoured her Plantagenant series and then the Catherine of Aragon Trilogy and the Queen Victoria books. After Jean Plaidy, I really loved Norah Lofts.; May 1, 2007 at 9:34:00 PM EDT
SuzanneG said...: Thanks, Elena! I have my summer reading list all ready!; May 2, 2007 at 12:39:00 AM EDT
Michelle Therese said...: WHAT?? No Jane Austin?? I'm mellllting...melllllting...; May 2, 2007 at 5:38:00 AM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Ha, ha. Jane is in a class by herself. I would NEVER lump her in with other writers. And what Jane wrote, although it is historical to us, was contemporary to her, so I don't know if she would be considered a historical novelist. She is definitely one of my favorite authors, though!!; May 2, 2007 at 9:09:00 AM EDT