Elizabeth and Essex A Tragic History

by Strachey, Lytton

• ISBN13: 9781780760490
• ISBN10: 1780760493
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-06-19
• Publisher: Tauris Parke Paperbacks

Summary

One of the most famous and tortured romances in historybetween Elizabeth I, Queen of England, and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essexbegan in 1587, when she was 53 and he was 19. Their passionate affair continued for five years, until Essex was beheaded for treason in 1601. In a fast-paced succession of brilliantly-rendered scenes, Lytton Strachey portrays Elizabeth and Essex's compelling attraction for each other, their impassioned disagreements, and their mutual struggle for power, which culminated so tragicallyfor both of them. Alongside the doomed love affair, Strachey pins colorful portraits of the leading characters and influential figures of the time: Francis Bacon, Walter Raleigh, Robert Cecil, and other members of her glittering court who fought to assert themselves in a kingdom and a country defined by Elizabeth's incomparable reign. Strachey here illuminates, in spellbinding prose, one of the most poignant affairs in history alongside the glamor and intrigue of the Elizabethan era.

Author Biography

Lytton Strachey (1880–1932), one of the most famous writers of his time, was a prominent member of the Bloomsbury set and pioneer of a new style of biography. He was the author of, among others, Landmarks, Eminent Victorians, and Queen Victoria.

Table of Contents

"A beautiful and memorable book." -- Atlantic Monthly

 

"The real drama of ambition, passion, and personality in the pageant of veracious history." -- The Philadelphia Enquirer