Product Description

Following a youth of poverty and bitter exile after his father's execution, the ousted king first challenged, then made his magnificent escape from, Cromwell's troops before he was eventually restored to his throne in triumph in 1660. 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. 'Detailed, sympathetic, and admirably readable' ECONOMIST

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36741 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

About the Author
Antonia Fraser is the author of many widely acclaimed historical works including the biographies, 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: BOADICEAS 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 now most recently LOVE AND LOUIS XIV: THE WOMEN IN THE LIFE OF THE SUN KING. Antonia Fraser was made CBE in 1999, and awarded the Norton Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2000. She lives in London and is currently working on a biography of Queen Elizabeth I. She was married to Harold Pinter who died on Christmas Eve 2008 and has eighteen grandchildren.

Customer Reviews

Not only the merry monarch - understanding Charles II.
Antonia Fraser' s King Charles II. is one of the best ever books written on this King.

This king went down in history as the merry monarch with all this mistresses and bastards children, a barren but not discarded Queen, a fast live with many entertainments.
Well, if one would stop here, one would never understand Charles II..
Antonia Fraser unfolds the life to Charles step by step, guides the reader through the ups and downs, the nightmares of the civil war, the lonely and poor days of a king-in-exile, the restoration and his actual reign. She looks behind the facade: the reader will discover a man following his way, his principles, a man who learned to survive, a man who believed in himself, a man who never gave up, a man with a great zest for life, a very clever man. But there are dark sides too: it was very hard to trust him. There was a very ruthless streak in him.

Antonia Fraser' s fascinating and elegantly written book makes the reader to understand the merry monarch. This book is one of my all time favourite biographies.

Well written, but too one-sided in tone
A colourful, well written and comprehensive biography. However, the author comes across as very pro-Charles and pro-Royalist, sometimes to the point of sycophancy. That said, I understand that she is also quite sympathetic to Cromwell in her biography of him (though not here), so maybe in part at least her attitude reflects a close identification with a subject she must spend a lot of time focusing on, given the length and thoroughness of her works.

King Charles II another great work from Antonia Fraser
Antonia Fraser in her foreword explains that while researching Cromwell, Chief of men she was intrigued by Charles 2nd and wanted to learn more. The result is another great book with all her usual scholarly and humanistic feeling for the character. Your come away from with book with another keen insight into history which she paints so vividly and accurately. She has the ability to bring to life every character from history with compassion and feeling, and above all impartiality. Another great book.