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Преуспевающий английский романист Сэмми Люк прилетает в Нью-Йорк для проведения телевизионного ток-шоу по своей последней книге «Плачущие женщины». Сэмми очарован Нью-Йорком и американцами, он счастлив и полон радостных предвкушений, но тут его начинают преследовать угрожающие телефонные звонки...

The six wives of Henry VIII - Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Catherine Parr – have become defined in a popular sense not so much by their lives as by the way these lives ended. But, as Antonia Fraser conclusively proves, they were rich and feisty characters.

They may have been victims of Henry's obsession with a male heir, but they were not willing victims. On the contrary, they displayed considerable strength and intelligence at a time when their sex supposedly possessed little of either. Inevitably there was great rivalry between them, and there was jealousy too – the desperate jealousy of Queens who found themselves abandoned, but also the sexual jealousy of the King who discovered himself betrayed.

The story Antonia Fraser tells is romantic and cruel, funny and sad, dramatic and enthralling.

Louis XIV, the highly-feted “Sun King”, was renowned for his political and cultural influence and for raising France to a new level of prominence in seventeenth-century Europe. And yet, as Antonia Fraser keenly describes, he was equally legendary in the domestic sphere. Indeed, a panoply of women—his mother, Anne; mistresses such as Louise de la Vallière, Athénaïs de Montespan, and the puritanical Madame de Maintenon; and an array of courtesans—moved in and out of the court. The highly visible presence of these women raises many questions about their position in both Louis XIV’s life and in France at large. With careful research and vivid, engaging prose, Fraser makes the multifaceted life of one of the most famous European monarchs accessible and vibrantly current.

Marie Antoinette, Antonia Fraser's first book in five years, heralds the welcome return of her wonderfully lucid, engaging style as she disentangles myth from fact regarding the life of the still controversial, and misunderstood, wife of Louis XVI of France. It is also perhaps her most assured work to date. The daughter of Empress Maria Teresa of Austria, the 14-year-old Marie Antoinette, or l'Autrichienne, was sent to France to marry the Dauphin in 1770 in an act of political union between the two countries. Despite her husband's preference for the hunting field over the bedroom, and a somewhat inexpressive personality--his final terse…

This essential reference is a concise, accessible guide to the great dynasties of English royalty. A collection of biographical sketches that encompasses the period from the establishment of monarchical power by the early Norman kings through the reign of Elizabeth II, The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England tells the stories of many monarchs and their colorful lives—some merry, some cruel, some heroic, others sinister. Antonia Fraser and a collection of distinguished contributors bring the people and events to life in this lavishly illustrated volume that is both engrossing history and an excellent reference tool.

This updated edition includes a new essay describing the recently tumultuous reign of the Windsors. Included are details of the weddings of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, and of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson; the acrimonious collapse of the marriages; the effect the media have had on the royal family's image; and the fire at Windsor Castle. Such recent events as Diana's tragic death, the decommissioning of the Royal Yacht Britannia, and the launching of Queen Elizabeth's own website are also discussed.

Accompanying the text are 175 contemporary illustrations and drawings of the royal coats of arms, with their significance explained by J.P. Brooke-Little, Richmond Herald of Arms. This is a dazzling story of a thousand years of English history, as told through the lives and deeds of the nation's sovereigns. (less)

Just how weak were the women of the Civil War era? What could they expect beyond marriage and childbirth in an age where infant and maternal mortality was frequent and contraception unknown? Did anyone marry for love? Could a woman divorce? What rights had the unmarried? What expectations the widows? An expert on the period, Antonia Fraser brings to life the many and various women she has encountered in her considerable research: governesses, milkmaids, fishwives, nuns, defenders of castles, courtesans, countesses, witches and widows.

She was the quintessentially regal: statuesque, beautiful. Birth gave her claim to two nations' thrones. Her marriage to the young French dauphin promised a 3rd. Instead, Mary Stuart became victim of her impulsive heart, scandalizing her world with foolish passion leading to abduction, rape & murder. Betrayed by those she trusted, she'd be lured into a power struggle, only to lose to her envious, unforgiving cousin, Elizabeth I. This is the story of a queen who lost a throne for love, pampered & adored even as she was to be beheaded.

As enumerated in an "Author's Note", Fraser aims (1) to test the truth of legends surrounding the subject & (2) to set Queen Mary in the context of the age in which she lived. Her portrait is largely sympathetic. Tho she stresses what she sees as Mary's virtues, she believes that Scotland at the time required an extraordinarily strong ruler to pull the nobles into line.

The book dismantles legends about Mary arising during & after her lifetime. Fraser recounts the circumstances surrounding the plot to murder the Queen's 2nd husband Darnley in detail. At the York Conference, the Regent Moray produced the Casket Letters, presented as love letters from Mary to her 3rd husband, Bothwell, with whom she had allegedly plotted to kill Darnley. After rigorous research, Fraser concludes that they were forgeries, an amalgamation of real letters that Mary wrote & love letters written to Bothwell by one of his mistresses.

Award-winning historian Antonia Fraser brilliantly portrays a courageous and compassionate woman who refused to be curbed by the personal and political constraints of her time.

Caroline Norton dazzled nineteenth-century society with her vivacity, her intelligence, her poetry, and in her role as an artist's muse. After her marriage in 1828 to the MP George Norton, she continued to attract friends and admirers to her salon in Westminster, which included the young Disraeli. Most prominent among her admirers was the widowed Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne.

Racked with jealousy, George Norton took the Prime Minister to court, suing him for damages on account of his 'Criminal Conversation' (adultery) with Caroline. A dramatic trial followed. Despite the unexpected and sensational result—acquittal—Norton was still able to legally deny Caroline access to her three children, all under seven. He also claimed her income as an author for himself, since the copyrights of a married woman belonged to her husband.

Yet Caroline refused to despair. Beset by the personal cruelties perpetrated by her husband and a society whose rules were set against her, she chose to fight, not surrender. She channeled her energies in an area of much-needed the rights of a married woman and specifically those of a mother. Over the next few years she campaigned tirelessly, achieving her first landmark victory with the Infant Custody Act of 1839. Provisions which are now taken for granted, such as the right of a mother to have access to her own children, owe much to Caroline, who was determined to secure justice for women at all levels of society from the privileged to the dispossessed.

An infant queen. A teenage widow. Beautiful, flamboyant Mary Queen of Scots had a formidable intellect but her political sense - formed at the absolute court of France - plunged her country into a maelstrom of intrigue, marriage and murder. Upon fleeing to England she was held captive by her cousin Elizabeth I. In this classic biography, reissued for the fiftieth anniversary of its publication, acclaimed historian Antonia Fraser relates the enthralling story of Mary's life and untimely end.

I first saw Harold across a crowded room, but it was lunchtime, not some enchanted evening, and we did not speak When Antonia Fraser met Harold Pinter she was a celebrated biographer and he was Britain's finest playwright. Both were already married - Pinter to the actress Vivien Merchant and Fraser to the politician Hugh Fraser - but their union seemed inevitable from the moment they met: 'I would have found you somehow', Pinter told Fraser. Their relationship flourished until Pinter's death on Christmas Eve 2008 and was a source of delight and inspiration to them both until the very end. Fraser uses her Diaries and her own recollections to tell a touching love story. But this is also a memoir of a partnership between two of the greatest literary talents, with fascinating glimpses into their creativity and their illustrious circle of friends from the literary, political and theatrical world.

Antonia Fraser, a popular historian, has delved into archives across Europe to unravel the true story of the plot by fanatical Roman Catholics to blow up the Houses of Parliament and King James I at the opening of Parliament in 1605.

When a murder takes place in a secluded tower at Blessed Eleanor's Convent in Sussex and the victim is an old school friend, Britain's most popular TV reporter Jemima Shore finds herself in the middle of a disturbing puzzle. The dead woman, a nun, was to inherit one of the largest fortunes in Britain. Jemima walks into the eye of a worldly storm of fear - and the more she learns, the clearer it becomes that more lives, including her own, are being threatened.

Retells the legend of the band of outlaws and their leader, Robin Hood, who robbed only from the wealthy.