Mediocre life of Elizabeth
Elizabeth Regina: 1588-1603. By Alison Plowden. MacMillan, 1980. 214 pp. $26.95.
“Elizabeth Regina” is the final part of a quartet by Alison Plowden on the life and times of Queen Elizabeth I. As the authoress herself admits “biographies of Elizabeth continue to proliferate.” Her biography is directed at the general reader. The differentiation between academic and popular history is a rather artificial one. Good history should be accessible to the academic and general reader alike. There is plenty of academically respectable history on the reign of Elizabeth that is of general
appeal, but 'Alison Plowdens book can offer nothing to the academic, and very little to the layman who is without considerable knowledge of the period — in which case why bother reading Alison Plowden? The lack of a clearly stated theme or thesis to see the reader through the narrative is the book’s chief drawback. The style — an unhappy cross between chatty tutorial and turgid lecture —i! another detraction.
It was reasonable of the publishers t< • allow Alison Plowden to complete hei series on the life of Elizabeth I. It ii regrettable that this volume is sc mediocre—Mhairi Erber.
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Press, 30 May 1981, Page 17
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193Mediocre life of Elizabeth Press, 30 May 1981, Page 17
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