The Painted Closet of Lady Anne Bacon Drury


Book Description

Lady Anne Bacon Drury (1572-1624) devised dozens of panels comprised of pictures and Latin mottoes for the walls of her closet or study. The panels functioned as a 'book' of meditations to enable her - well-connected, wealthy, and well-educated as she was - to cope with the disappointments of her life. For the first time in 400 years, Meakin thoroughly investigates the personal, social, and intellectual contexts of Lady Drury's closet.




The Letters of Lady Anne Bacon


Book Description

The letters of Lady Anne Bacon, mother of Francis Bacon, which shed light on Elizabethan politics from a female perspective.




An Apology or Answer in Defence of The Church Of England


Book Description

Lady Anne Cooke Bacon's translation of Bishop John Jewel's Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae (1562) as An Apology or Answer in Defence of the Church of England (1564) is the official defence of the Elizabethan Settlement. At once an explanation and vindication of the establishment of the English Church and an attack on the perceived failings of the Church of Rome, An Apology embodies the tensions of a polemical age. It illustrates how politics and religion were inextricably entwined in early printed books. As well as shining light on the intense controversy between Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, and fellow Devon native Thomas Harding, exiled in Louvain, Lady Bacon's text and its reception foreground the critical significance of her translating expertise in presenting church history and debates through pungent, idiomatic prose. One of the lauded Cooke sisters and mother of Sir Anthony and Sir Francis, Lady Bacon combined her proven talent in languages and reform principles with an insider's knowledge of court intrigues. Although her translation disappeared from print acknowledgement for almost two centuries, it is here offered in a richly annotated edition. Explaining and contextualizing the cryptic marginalia, this edition allows twenty-first-century readers to feel the heat and apprehend the strategic importance of An Apology.







Women and Writing, C.1340-c.1650


Book Description

Taking its cue from the advances made by recent work on manuscript culture and book history, this volume also includes studies of material evidence, looking at women's participation in the making of books, and the traces they left when they encountered actual volumes. Finally, studies of women's roles in relation to apparently ephemeral texts, such as letters, pamphlets and almanacs, challenge traditional divisions between public and private spheres as well as between manuscript and print --Book Jacket.




The Private Correspondence of Jane Lady Cornwallis Bacon, 1613-1644


Book Description

The readiness of families such as this to write directly, rather than to dictate through secretaries, makes the literary outcome more personal and intimate, more expressive of inner feelings and shared sensibility. In consequence, the letters carry their own truth across the ages."




Lady in Waiting


Book Description

Discover untold secrets with this extraordinary memoir of drama and tragedy by Anne Glenconner—a close member of the royal circle and lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret. Anne Glenconner has been at the center of the royal circle from childhood, when she met and befriended the future Queen Elizabeth II and her sister, the Princess Margaret. Though the firstborn child of the 5th Earl of Leicester, who controlled one of the largest estates in England, as a daughter she was deemed "the greatest disappointment" and unable to inherit. Since then she has needed all her resilience to survive court life with her sense of humor intact. A unique witness to landmark moments in royal history, Maid of Honor at Queen Elizabeth's coronation, and a lady in waiting to Princess Margaret until her death in 2002, Anne's life has encompassed extraordinary drama and tragedy. In Lady in Waiting, she will share many intimate royal stories from her time as Princess Margaret's closest confidante as well as her own battle for survival: her broken-off first engagement on the basis of her "mad blood"; her 54-year marriage to the volatile, unfaithful Colin Tennant, Lord Glenconner, who left his fortune to a former servant; the death in adulthood of two of her sons; a third son she nursed back from a six-month coma following a horrific motorcycle accident. Through it all, Anne has carried on, traveling the world with the royal family, including visiting the White House, and developing the Caribbean island of Mustique as a safe harbor for the rich and famous-hosting Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Raquel Welch, and many other politicians, aristocrats, and celebrities. With unprecedented insight into the royal family, Lady in Waiting is a witty, candid, dramatic, at times heart-breaking personal story capturing life in a golden cage for a woman with no inheritance. New York Times Bestseller USA Today Bestseller The Sunday Times Bestseller The Globe and Mail Bestseller ABA Indie Bestseller The Times (UK) Memoir of the Year One of Newsweek's Most Anticipated Books of 2020




Unnatural Murder


Book Description

In the autumn of 1615 the Earl and Countess of Somerset were detained on suspicion of having murdered Sir Thomas Overbury. The arrest of these leading court figures created a sensation. The Countess was both young and beautiful: the Earl was one of the richest and most powerful men in the kingdom, having risen to prominence as the male 'favourite' of the monarch James I. In a vivid narrative, Anne Somerset unravels these extraordinary events, which were widely regarded as an extreme manifestation of the corruption and vice which disfigured the court during this period. It is at once a story rich in passion and intrigue and a murder mystery, for, despite the guilty verdicts, there is much about Overbury's death that remains enigmatic. The Overbury murder case profoundly damaged the monarchy, and constituted the greatest court scandal in English history.




Murder by Misrule


Book Description

Brilliant Francis Bacon is at a loss -- and in danger. Francis Bacon is charged with investigating the murder of a fellow barrister at Gray's Inn. He recruits his unwanted protégé Thomas Clarady to do the tiresome legwork. The son of a privateer, Clarady will do anything to climb the Elizabethan social ladder. Bacon's powerful uncle Lord Burghley suspects Catholic conspirators of the crime, but other motives quickly emerge. Rival barristers contend for the murdered man's legal honors and wealthy clients. Highly-placed courtiers are implicated as the investigation reaches from Whitehall to the London streets. Bacon does the thinking; Clarady does the fencing. Everyone has something up his pinked and padded sleeve. Even the brilliant Francis Bacon is at a loss — and in danger — until he sees through the disguises of the season of Misrule. “Castle’s characters brim with zest and real feeling.” — Kirkus Starred Review. Don’t dally! Jump right into this first book in the award-winning Francis Bacon mystery series.




Bacon's Novum organum


Book Description