2 comments about Queen Elizabeth I Paper Doll (Paper Dolls).

1. It's a pretty paper doll book of the "Queen Elizabeth I" but still I saw other paper doll book who were more beautiful, this one lack of little details but it's still a nice book if you like to know what kind of wardrobe Queen Elizabeth was wearing and if you are interest in "Elizabeth I" like I do you will like it!



2. Tom Tierney has obviously done a good deal of research in preparation for this book. The costumes are well selected and accurately colored and depicted.
   I was disappointed on two scores. Firstly, the costumes aren't printed on card (only the doll is). Secondly, I think there should have been at least two dolls showing the queen at different stages of her life.
   It's also odd that dolls of Sir Walter Raleigh and the Earl of Essex are included, but Elizabeth's closest friend (and greatest love), Robert Dudley, wasn't.

3 comments about Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen and Legend.

1. This book was an accurate account of Eleanor of Aquitaine. He does a wonderful job in depicting her life.



2. This is a great book. I learned so much from this book. I am doing a project on Queen Eleanor and it helped me so much.I hope everyone else learns as much as I did! I hope that she will still have her name in history in a houndred years from now. ENJOY the book.



3. The late D.D.R. Owen was Professor Emeritus of French at Scotland's University of St. Andrews. He had acquired the languages, the deep cultural knowledge and the scholar's discipline that equipped him to compose a fine, restrained biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Owen's treatment is careful to draw a line between rumor and fact (insofar as that line can be drawn more than eight centuries later). He exposes rumors, plays them down and turns his attention to accenting history.
   
   Eleanor was a patron and sponsor of troubadours at her many courts. Verses and songs in her praise inevitably fueled the whiff of scandal. Her enemies' verses and whisperings, her larger than life character and the written records of tut-tutting clerics from Paris to Antioch all darkened her record. Owen set himself the task of rubbing away the grime of ages to expose the life at the core. His account of Eleanor's limitations and excesses is no less interesting for that. Thus he can show more clearly than most how much authority this amazing woman did, or did not, exercise through sixty-seven years during which she counseled, provoked or scorned four kings, two of them her husbands, two of them her sons.
   
   Owen's "Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen and Legend" is the book for readers who want their Eleanor, beauty, warts and all, but shorn of celebrity fluff. In that sense it complements Bonnie Wheeler's and John Parsons' "Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady." Both books offer scholarly approaches. They are well matched in presenting well-crafted interpretations of violent, turbulent, very strange times, with a strong-willed queen presiding.
   
   Robert Fripp, author of
   Power of a Woman. Memoirs of a turbulent life: Eleanor of Aquitaine

No comments about Collins Guide to Scots Kith & Kin: A Guide to the Clans and Surnames of Scotland.

1 comments about The Pastons: A Family in the Wars of the Roses (First Person Singular).

1. Unmatched by any history book, these letters constitute a rich and intimate glimpse into the 15th century.

   Spanning several generations of the redoubtable Paston family, they are a unique record of their rise to eminence in their native Norfolk, and of the life during the upheavels of the civil wars between Yorkists and Lancastrians.

4 comments about Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700. Lineages from Afred the Great, Charlemagne, Malcolm of Scotland, Robert ... other Historical Individuals. Eighth Edition.

1. This book has an extreme amount of valuable information contained in it, but for the novice researcher, you may want to wait on this one. There's no plot to this book, simply titles, dates & places of birth/death, spouses and parents. Occasionally you'll get tidbits like 'participant in War of 1066' or 'Sheriff of Berkley Castle'.



2. Just cut to the chase. This book is in its 8th edition due to the devotion of Weis and his colleagues who carry on his life work. Do NOT spend hundreds of dollars buying research that the geneologist gathers from free online sources. FIRST, if you have ancestors from Massachusetts, New York, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Conneticutt and Virginia you very probably are descended from or cousin to many lines documented from about 350 A.D. Gallo Roman period right through to the Pilgrims, Puritans, etc. Why? Because as Nathaniel Philbrook states in his book, 'Mayflower,' 35 million AMericans are descended from the 52 survivors of the first winter in Plymouth. Why are they related to uddles of British and continental nobles? Because the some 2,000 Norman families who ruled England married the rest of Europes nobles and by 1600 they had grown to 20,000 and had more spare children than Davey Crooket has money. The spares took up Puritism and or wanted to flip properties in the new world. SECOND, load up a good family tree software program (about $30.00)... Spent 2 years entering...



3. For anyone who has a link from New England to England of any of the colonists listed at the beginning of the book, this is an essential book. The eighth edition is the best of the editions. The amount of research it took to gather all the information is amazing. It is great to see that more recent researchers are carrying on in the tradition of Frederick Lewis Weis. I bought it new on amazon.com, and have used it extensively. It has post-it notes sticking out of half the pages, since I seem to end up looking at just about every other page. The resources given are excellent, and I'm glad they have given plenty of resources for each entry. If I want more information, I know where to go.



4. First published in 1950, Weis improves with each new edition. There's hardly a noble family in Europe west of the Dnieper River that does not appear in this book. The plan is straightforward: Line 1 (of nearly 400) begins with Cerdic, King of the West Saxons, and follows his descendants, step by step, down to Capt. Edward Pelham of Newport, Rhode Island, who died in 1730. Most of the intermediate generations refer the reader to another line, and another descent (or several); in this first one, No. 30 is John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who becomes the root of another, different lineage. No. 14 is Ethelwulf, King of Wessex, who is the root of the next lineage (revised for this edition), and so on. The whole book becomes a cascade of the lineages of a relatively small number of colonial American "gateway" ancestors, most of whom interconnect among themselves by marriage -- usually several times. Each brief listing (this is not a narrative history) includes page-level citations to well-regarded sources, including published histories, journal articles, parish registers, the _Complete Peerage,_ and others. Which means that if one can work one's way back to one of the colonial gentlemen or ladies who anchor the lines in this work, one instantly steps onto the express highway to medieval Europe.
   
   Dr. Weis died in 1966 and Sheppard, himself a renowned genealogist, undertook (successfully) to maintain his high standards, until his own death in 2000; the 4th through 7th editions were the result of his own editorial labors, after which the Bealls (who had been assisting Sheppard) took up the mission. Re-checking and verifying all the previously published lines against both the original sources and newer ones, they were able to extensively revise and extend more than ninety of them, add sixty entirely new descents (mostly Continental), and delete a dozen or so that had failed of sufficient proof. This edition is 100 pages longer than even the one just previous. This is a very inexpensive work indeed, especially compared to many of the other titles on this list, and it should be on *every* genealogist's bookshelf.

4 comments about The Genealogist's Internet: New and Expanded.

1. I borrowed the second edition from the local library and have decided to buy the third edition. While the reviews of software and how to set up a website can become a little dated, you only need get one or two good ideas out of a book like this to make it more than worth the cost.



2. The Internet is perhaps the greatest innovation in the past hundred years for the amateur or professional genealogist. "The Genealogist's Internet" is an updated and expanded fourth edition of this acclaimed reference for the genealogist who embraces the internet as an invaluable tool. Outlining major resources to look for, joining discussion groups to aid one's search, sifting through general information, and more, "The Genealogist's Internet" is a must have reference for those who want to use the internet to its fullest.



3. It gives great resourses for the internet. Glad to have the book. Would recomend it to others



4. Easy to read. great references. full of information for those interested in researching ancestors overseas by computer.

5 comments about The Book of Myself: A Do-It-Yourself Autobiography in 201 Questions.

1. Great book for any one who wants to reflect on there growing memories. Great for any one who would like to leave memories of there childhood threw early age



2. This is a great book for anyone who wants to leave a story for their children or grandchildren. I received one as a gift from my daughter and have recommended to many times. It's a work in progress answering the questions and am loving to do it.



3. This book will be something I can use for years. Thanks for the great Service



4. This book is needed for the older generation to pass on their knowledge and wisdom to the younger generation. it is designed to alert the mind of the elderly with easy questions so they can pass on their wisdom and activities to the next generation. We are not doing that as a nation but it is needed to continue our civilization. I mention this good book in my forthcoming book "pass it on or Lose it.



5. I bought two of these books for my sister & her husband's 40th Anniversary. They were very impressed and feel with the guidelines and questions, they just might be able to have an autobiography for their children and family's

3 comments about Plymouth Colony: Its History and People.

1. In doing research on my own ancestor who was a passanger on the Mayflower and one of the original Pilgrims, I have used over 50 books. This one is by far the best. Very readable, this book provides an excellent narative of many of the events of the first 70 years at Plymouth, and detailed descriptions of many of the Pilgrims. For anyone interested in this era, this book is a must.



2. There are hundreds of books out there about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving and all that goes with the subject. But the majority of these books are written either in a stodgy, encyclopedic (read: Boring!) format, or they are written for children. Well, now I have one that is actually written for adults, as well as in an easy to read manner. Written mainly from a genealogical stance, the author, Eugene Aubrey Stratton, did his "putting flesh on the bones" research; that is, he sought out how the pilgrims lived their daily lives in all aspects of their time and place. Instead of the cartoonish figures we all see come November, Mr. Stratton actually gives an authentic look to these early Americans. He makes the reader feel that they now know the pilgrims, not only through their historical prominence in our early history, but by name, and we feel their hardships, especially of their first winter here. After the first time reading this book, I re-read it, only this time I read the 'Biographical Sketches' section, located toward the back of the book, first, THEN I went to the beginning. My advice to the first time reader is to do the same. You will then know who you are reading about as names are mentioned.
   This book is, simply put, the best of its kind. Maybe more genealogists should write our history books! At least they bring history to life!



3. My husband & I are both descended from The Mayflower - He from William Brewster & Stephen Hopkins and I from William Bradford. This book has added so much information for our Genealogy. I cannot tell you how many times I have used it to add information to our family history file. It has many years of use.

5 comments about London: A Life in Maps.

1. Peter Whitfield's "London, A Life in Maps" is a must-read for anyone with an interest in, and/or love for, Britain's capital city. Having lived in London for three years in the 1970's, and returned many times since, I found the maps, drawings, photos, and text enthralling, shedding light on innumerable aspects of the city that previously were unknown to me. What an incredible amount of research Peter Whitfield has done, and how brilliantly he presents it. The book would make a superb gift for any Anglophile or student of English history.



2. The British Library published this beautiful book of maps of London. The reproductions of maps and plans are enhanced with engravings, paintings and photographs. Peter Whitfield's commentary for each map is informative and engaging. Each map stands alone, but taken as a whole the book presents a panorama of a great city.
   
   A few of my many favorites include:
   
   Caesar's Camp called "the Brill" located just outside St. Pancras on the River Fleet just outside London.
   
   Matthew Paris's 1250-54 diagram from London Bridge ('pons Lond.') and the Thames ('Tamise'), through Rochester and Canterbury to Dover, then crossing the sea ('La Mer') and reaching France.
   
   A 1593 guide for Cuntrey men In the famous Cittey of LONDON.
   
   Section and Plan of a Gateway to Westminster at Hyde Park Corner, 1778.
   
   Plan of a Proposed TURNPIKE ROAD From St. JOHN'S CHAPEL, ST. MARYLEBONE into the Great North Road Near the 8 Mile Stone at Finchley, 1824.
   
   A small sample of Whitfield's prose: "Between 1850 and 1945 London changed beyond recognition as a result of the interplay between population pressures, novel means of transport, a revolution in building techniques, and a new leisure ethos. By the early 20th century there were a variety of Londons. Buildings spread deep into the countryside until Green Belt legislation was passed to save what remained. Distinct types of suburb developed. Ramblers took advantage of the remaining commons, heaths and woods around London. And those two icons of modern London, the A-Z and the Underground map, were created."
   
   The book is a delight to hold and to study. Even better, the British Library has mounted an interactive exhibit of 40 the 100 maps in this book. And, many of the maps are available for sale in the Library's shop.
   
   Robert C. Ross 2008



3. Now and then, I come across a book which I quickly discover must be opened with care, and not when any other responsibilities are pressing, because it will prove almost impossible to put down. Whitfield's marvelous cartographic treatment of the history since the 16th century of one of the western world's premiere cities is just such a book. Along with chronology, maps are one of the key adjuncts in the study of history, visualizing and placing in context the relationships between events of the past. Whitfield is a well-known expert in the history of exploration and of maps, and he provides here a guided tour of London's development since the mid-16th century, when the first maps of the city began to appear. They were really "views," with elevations of buildings, and designed with a low point-of-view, not the schematic plan from directly overhead of the modern urban street map, but they get the point across: London, while already one of the largest cities in Europe, was tiny by today's standards. The Strand was almost a country lane connecting the City of the London with Westminster, upriver. Spitalfield was still the open land before St. Mary's Hospital, just outside Bishopsgate -- which was still a gate in the city walls. And because of the Great Fire and the complete loss of the old wooden city, these early maps are our best source for what medieval London really looked like. In fact, the Fire itself gave impetus to the development of urban cartography, as an aid in rebuilding the city. In addition to early plans of the major thoroughfares, certain important buildings and districts also drew attention, including Henry VIII's Whitehall Palace -- now completely replaced, except for the Banqueting Hall, by the machinery of modern government -- and the new developments at Covent Garden, Grosvenor Square, and the other elite foci of the West End which the nobility built from their estates (and from which most of them amassed enormous fortunes). The building of sprawling docks downriver to accommodate London's vast international trade were of cartographic interest as early as 1700. The volume continues through the Hanoverian dynasty and the Victorian era, following the City's ever-outward expansion, the incorporation of older villages, the establishment of entirely new suburbs, the desertion by the gentry of much of the inner city, the covering over of London's numerous small rivers, and the building of thoroughfares like Marylebone Road to accommodate the boom in commercial traffic. Many of these projects, moreover, were private initiatives, proposed with profit in mind; taxpayer-funded public works didn't become important until much later in the 19th century. Railways, factories, commercial cemeteries, green spaces, tenements, the Great Exhibition -- Whitfield covers them all. And he ends with the establishment of the London County Council, the transport revolution, and the great commercial boom that followed World War II, threatening to destroy and replace what little of the pre-modern city remained. This book, a perfect combination of absorbing information and visual delight, is almost a mandatory acquisition for anyone who studies modern British history, or who simply loves London. The city's biography resides in its maps.



4. Two things I love: historical maps and London - in one book.
   It's a good mix of maps/graphics and supporting historical text - easy to read, not dry and organised by themes.
   If you love maps and have an interest in the history and development of London, you really should buy this.
   
   I was surprised by the good (physical) quality of the book too, as it seemed relatively inexpensive compared to similar books.



5. this is a handsome, entertaining and informative overview of the history of london from the late renaissance through modern times, animated by documentary representations of the city. the title is misleading, in that maps form only part of the visual narrative: we're also shown architectural engravings, landscape panoramas, historical paintings, literary illustrations, aerial photographs and other "views" of london. the text is usually arranged as one or two columns beside or facing the visual evidence, and is generally well written and anecdotal. this is an ideal book for young and old interested in english history, cartography, or urban development, and for anyone visiting london with enough time to really explore the city's museums and monuments. (my traveler tip: i encountered this book in the victoria & albert museum bookstore, and reserved it on amazon for delivery back home.)
   
   i have several minor reservations about this edition. the quality of the reproductions and illustrations varies widely; the contrast or resolution of some maps or images is so low that they are effectively illegible (doré engravings, p.156; spurrier & phipps plan, p. 121; london railway, p.132; paddington parish, p.134; etc.), and some are jpeg files with compression artifacts (charing cross, p.136) or badly rescreened halftone images that produce moire patterns (wren's plan, p.118). (yes, the editorial difficulties in compiling images from so many sources were considerable ... but all the same.) the sewn binding is, for a trade paperback, superbly robust, but this makes it very difficult to open the book flat to examine the (many) maps printed across facing pages. i also regretted the lack of an archaeological or reconstruction map of roman and medieval london (the narrative starts in 1550), a synoptic map showing the gradually expanding urban limits, and a double page map of existing buildings, keyed by color to the period in which they were built.

1 comments about Inheritance: The Story of Knole and the Sackvilles.

1. [Review refers to U.K. edition]
   It is very old. The total number of rooms is somewhere very close to 365 (depends on your definition of room). There are 52 staircases (one for each week of the year) and within its grey ragstone walls, are the seven famed courtyards (one for each day of the week). As you might surmise, it's known as the "Calendar House." Completed in 1486, Knole in Kent in the United Kingdom epitomizes a British Stately Mansion.
   
   "Inheritance: The Story of Knole and the Sackvilles," by Robert Sackville-West is the storied history of the home, one of England's largest, and the 13 generations of Sackvilles who have inhabited the grand 15th-century building for more than four centuries.
   
   Vita Sackville-West, part of the Bloomsbury crowd and Virginia Woolf's great friend and lover, famously described her Sackville ancestors as "a race too prodigal, too amorous, too weak, too indolent and too melancholy; a rotten lot, and nearly all stark staring mad."
   
   Of Knole, she wrote "It has the deep inward gaiety of some very old woman who has always been beautiful, who has had many lovers and seen many generations come and go, smiled wisely over their sorrows and their joys, and leant an imperishable secret of tolerance and humour."
   
   Vita loved her childhood home but her gender prevented her from inheriting Knole when her father died. Instead, her uncle took over title and estate. Knole is now under the care and partial ownership of England's National Trust. The Sackvilles still call Knole home and have ownership of a sizable portion of the house and gardens.
   
   Charles Sackville, the 6th Earl of Dorset who occupied Knole in the late 1600s was certainly in the running for the most rowdy (randy, too) of Vita's rotten lot. Described as having twinkling eyes and a "podgy face," the Earl and a group of his drinking friends met for dinner on June 16, 1663 at the Cock Tavern in London's Covent Garden. Soon they were being served by "six naked women." Soon after that the women and Sackville along with two of his co-revelers proceeded to a balcony overlooking the street. All three of the men stripped naked and according to Samuel Pepys in his famous diary acted in "all the postures of lust and buggery that could be imagined."
   
   The lewd antics attracted a crowd and resulted in mayhem and broken shop windows. Charges of abuse of the "King's Peace" resulted in at least one fine of 2,000 marks, a substantial sum. By coincidence on the same day as the romp, lightning struck and heavily damaged the Sackville family mausoleum.
   
   The 6th Earl of Dorset is just one of the many Sackville portraits presented in the 440-year family history. Among those is lonely Lady Anne Clifford in the early 1600s, whose rake of a husband Richard Sackville, the 3rd Earl of Dorset, threatened to desert her and take custody of their daughter unless she signed over to him her family wealth. She didn't.
   
   The 3rd Duke of Dorset, John Frederick Sackville, is mentioned as a possible model for the Scarlett Pimpernel. There's the bachelor Lionel who in the 1860s fathered five children with his mistress, a Spanish dancer called Pepita. It was one of Lionel's illegitimate daughters, Victoria, who kept Knole in the family when she married her first cousin, another Sackville named Lionel. Victoria not only preserved the Sackville legacy, in 1902 she installed electric lighting.
   
   Today, upward of 80,000 visitors tred the halls in the public areas. Fifteen or so of the 365 rooms are currently open to visitors. The National Trust has plans to make many more of the rooms accessible to visitors. The author, who by right of male succession, holds title to the private areas lives with his wife and children in a suite of refurbished rooms along the building's south front. They have private access to one of the seven inner courtyards, the Pheasant Court. The Sackville family holds the lease on Knole for another 140 years.
   
   The book is titled "Inheritance" because it records a remarkable ancestry that has kept the home in the same family for more than four centuries. It's a thoroughly researched story with enough intrigue, heartbreak and goings-on for a lively full season of Masterpiece Theater. Knole is a grand building. Its walls enclose an incomparable history that in the telling becomes an extraordinary story. On a simpler plane it's a romp of a read.