Review
Once again, Philippa Gregory visits the
courts of Tudor England. Written in the alternating voices of the three
key protagonists "in an attempt to bring to life these three very contrasting
young women in their attempts to survive and profit in these dangerous times",
Gregory challenges the historical record that has typecast Henry VIII's fourth
wife, Anne of Cleves, as sexually repellent and his fifth wife, Katherine
Howard, as a "stupid slut" (in the words of one modern historian), while also
exploring Jane Boleyn's role in the machinations of court life during this
turbulent period.
As Gregory explains in her essay about
The Boleyn Inheritance (which
you'll find on the reading guide page at BookBrowse), the most likely reason
Henry took so against Anne was that she inadvertently humiliated him when they
first met. Henry considered himself a...
Beyond the Book
Philippa Gregory was born in Kenya in 1954, and educated in England
gaining a BA degree in history from the University of Sussex and a PhD in 18th
century literature from Edinburgh University. For a time she worked as a
journalist but took to full time writing after the success of her first novel
Wideacre, which was written as she completed her PhD. It was the first of a
trilogy (1987-1990) including
The Favored Child and
Meridon. This
trilogy was followed by
Earthly Joys (1998) and
Virgin Earth
(1990) set in the English civil war.
After this she wrote a number of
stand-alone novels dipping into a variety of genres leaning to romance before
truly hitting her stride in 2001 with the publication of
The Other Boleyn...
