Antonia Fraser biography

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Antonia Fraser

Antonia Fraser

Antonia Fraser Biography

Since 1969 Antonia Fraser has written nine acclaimed historical works which have been international best-sellers. She began with Mary Queen of Scots (1969) and followed it with Cromwell: Our Chief of Men (1973) and Charles II (1979). Three books featuring women's history came next: The Weaker Vessel; Woman's Lot in the Seventeenth Century (1984); The Warrior Queens (1988) and The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1992). A study in religious extremism, The Gunpowder Plot: Terror And Faith in 1605 (1996) was followed by two books set at the court of Versailles: Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2001) and Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King (2006).

Antonia Fraser has also written eight crime novels and two books of short stories featuring Jemima Shore Investigator. She edits the Kings and Queens of England series for Weidenfeld & Nicolson including her own short illustrated book King James VI and I (1974) and the composite volume Kings and Queens of England (1975).

Among the many awards she has received are the Wolfson Award for History; the James Tait Black Prize for Biography; the Crimewriters' Non-Fiction Gold Dagger; the Franco-British Society Literary Award, and the Norton Medlicott Medallion of the Historical Association. She was made DBE in 2011 for her services to literature.

Antonia Fraser is the eldest child of the Labour politician and prison reformer Lord Longford and the historical biographer Elizabeth Longford. She has six children by her first marriage to Sir Hugh Fraser MP and eighteen grandchildren. Her most recent book is Must You Go?, celebrating her life with Harold Pinter, who died on Christmas Eve 2008. She lives in London.



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Books by Antonia Fraser at BookBrowse
The Case of the Married Woman jacket Must You Go? jacket Love and Louis XIV jacket Marie Antoinette jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Antonia Fraser but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Ken Alder

    Ken Alder

    Ken Alder is an associate professor of history at Northwestern University and holds a Ph.D. from Harvard. His first book, Engineering the Revolution, won the 1998 Dexter Prize for the best book on the history of technology. ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Marie Antoinette

    Try:
    The Measure of All Things
    by Ken Alder

  • Helen Castor

    Helen Castor

    Helen Castor is a historian of medieval England and a Bye-Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Her first book, Blood and Roses, was long-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2005 and won the English Association's ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Marie Antoinette

    Try:
    Joan of Arc
    by Helen Castor

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