The Colourful Career of the First Mrs Robinson

Bird Of Paradise

The extraordinary rags-to-riches story of the first Mary Robinson, one of the 18th century's most admired, reviled and written-about women.

'Sarah Gristwood does a fine job of making us see that Mary Robinson matters not just as a victim of the celebrity-mad period but as an important player in British literature...[she] has written a wonderful biography'

A fascinating and stimulating portrait ... the literary equivalent of the famous Gainsborough of Robinson

Well written and sensitive...very readable'

An exemplary biography of an unforgettable woman

After leaving Oxford, Sarah Gristwood worked as a journalist specializing in the arts and women's issues. She was a regular contributor to The Times, Guardian, Independent and Evening Standard. 
 
Arbella, her historical biography of Arbella Stuart, was widely acclaimed on publication and is also available from Bantam Books.

Few women's lives have described such an arc as that of Mary Robinson. She began her career as an actress, became a royal mistress and possible blackmailer, and ended it just two decades later as a Romantic poet and early feminist thinker of note. She was painted by Gainsborough and Reynolds, and satirized by political cartoonists. 
 
Born in Bristol in 1758, she married at 15. But Mary had barely made her curtsey to society before discovering that Robinson was little better than a conman. She went with him to debtors' prison, where she wrote her first book of verse. Encouraged by Sheridan and Garrick, who admired her beauty, she went on the stage, where she was seen by the 17-year-old Prince of Wales, and they embarked on a widely satirized liaison. Mary had made her mark in fashionable Georgian society and this, over the next two momentous decades, was where she contrived to stay. 
 
This vivid and accessible biography explores Georgian England during a period of extreme political, social and cultural upheaval through the life of this remarkable woman.

Arbella: England's Lost Queen

The acclaimed account of an extraordinary life previously lost in history yet spanning both Tudor and Stuart courts and encompassing espionage, a clandestine marriage, elopement, imprisonment and eventual death in the Tower of London.

Discover the incredible, forgotten true story of England’s lost queen and in-depth account of a key figure in Tudor history, perfect for readers of Alison Weir. 
 
‘A powerful story of the dynastic insecurity of the Tudors and Stuart' The Sunday Times 
 
'This is historical biography at its best...Don't miss it' Alison Weir 
 
---------------------------- 
Lady Arbella Stuart’s royal bloodline suggested a glorious future. 
 
A descendant of Henry VII, niece to Mary Queen of Scots, and granddaughter to the great Tudor dynast Bess of Hardwick, Arbella was brought up in the belief that she would inherit Elizabeth I's throne. 
 
When this did not become reality, she briefly gained the independence she craved at the heart of Jacobean society. 
 
But then she made the mistake of angering her cousin, the newly crowned King James I, by secretly marrying another distant heir, William Seymour, thus strengthening her claim to the throne. 
The consequences would be deadly. 
 
A tale of forbidden love, disguised escape and wild flight, to an agonizing imprisonment and death in the Tower in 1615, this is the beguiling biography of an extraordinary woman who became a pawn in the power struggles of her time. 
 
Meticulously researched and drawing on a wide variety of sources, Arbella brings to life a woman who, despite the turmoil in her life, strove to love freely, speak her wrongs loudly, and - rare for a woman of her time - take charge of her own destiny. 
---------------------------- 
Praise for Arbella: England’s Lost Queen: 
 
‘An enthralling account of an extraordinary life' Spectator 
 
‘A Jacobean tragedy … Fresh, vivid and beautifully detailed … Gristwood conveys it with exactly the right mixture of suspense and sympathy.’ Independent 
 
'Well researched and stimulating...A sad but enthralling story' Evening Standard

'Utterly compelling...an exquisite jewel of a book'

'Carrying her learning lightly, Sarah Gristwood presents a powerful story of the dynastic insecurity of the Tudors and Stuart'

'Sarah Gristwood succeeds triumphantly...an enthralling account of an extraordinary life'

'She teases out some vivid threads...and deftly weaves them into a startling "pattern of misfortune"...The delights are in the detail, and Gristwood makes the most of them'

'Well researched and stimulating...A sad but enthralling story'

'Fresh, vivid and beautifully detailed...conveyed with exactly the right mixture of suspense and sympathy'

Sarah Gristwood

A fascinating portrait of power, love and royalty in dangerous times

Quite simply one of the most enthralling history books I've ever read ... a convincing and captivating portrayal of the Virgin Queen and the man who meant more to her than any other. You must read this!

Gristwood disentangles the many myths and stories that have been spun about the life-long love and loyalty between the queen and her 'Sweet Robin'.

An accessible, thought-provoking portrait

Heaving with detail and anecdote, Elizabeth and Leicester plunges us into the turbulent Tudor world and makes absorbing reading

This is the first scholarly examination of this relationship for fifty years and it makes compelling reading.

This has to be the last word on that much-discussed (then and now) relationship between the Virgin Queen and her favourite, Robert Dudley...It's gripping.

Few relationships fire our imagination like that of Elizabeth I and her 'bonnie sweet Robin' - the Earl of Leicester, Robert Dudley. 
 
Almost immediately after she became queen, Elizabeth's infatuation with the married Earl became the subject of letters from scandalized ambassadors. And when Dudley's wife, Amy, died a mere two years later under suspicious circumstances many speculated that Elizabeth and Robert would marry. 
 
They never did, although by the time Robert died he had been Elizabeth's councillor and commander of her army, had sat by her bed in sickness and represented her on state occasions. But she had also humiliated him, made him dance attendance on her other suitors, and tried to have him clapped in prison when he finally broke loose and married again. 
 
Elizabeth and Leicester is a portrait - at times a startlingly intimate one - of the tie between two of the people who forced their age; of a relationship where, unusually, a woman held all the power; of an edgy yet enduring love that still speaks to us today.

Elizabeth & Leicester

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Sarah Gristwood

Praise for Elizabeth & Leicester

A fascinating portrait of power, love and royalty in dangerous times

Quite simply one of the most enthralling history books I've ever read ... a convincing and captivating portrayal of the Virgin Queen and the man who meant more to her than any other. You must read this!

Gristwood disentangles the many myths and stories that have been spun about the life-long love and loyalty between the queen and her 'Sweet Robin'.

A fascinating portrait of power, love and royalty in dangerous times

Quite simply one of the most enthralling history books I've ever read ... a convincing and captivating portrayal of the Virgin Queen and the man who meant more to her than any other. You must read this!

Gristwood disentangles the many myths and stories that have been spun about the life-long love and loyalty between the queen and her 'Sweet Robin'.

A fascinating portrait of power, love and royalty in dangerous times

Quite simply one of the most enthralling history books I've ever read ... a convincing and captivating portrayal of the Virgin Queen and the man who meant more to her than any other. You must read this!

Gristwood disentangles the many myths and stories that have been spun about the life-long love and loyalty between the queen and her 'Sweet Robin'.

Books by Sarah Gristwood

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