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The Heir Apparent: A Life Of Edward VII, The Playboy Prince (2013)

by Jane Ridley(Favorite Author)

3.45 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1400062551 (ISBN13: 9781400062553)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Random House

review 1: I did set the book down for months in the middle, which probably isn't a great sign -- but I did eventually pick it back up, and was mostly pleasantly surprised at how engrossing I found it. It's a fairly standard biography in most respects, though perhaps more focus on the women in the subject's life than on other aspects. That is a fairly mainstream decision, given Edward VII's life, and the already weighty book would have been unmanageably sprawling had the author devoted as much depth to other topics as she did to the central relationships she was interested it. Still, it does feel a bit uneven: there is a great deal about his relationship with his sister Alice, for instance -- which is understandable as she was his favorite, but it seems like it might have been jus... moret as interesting and revealing to have read more on why he seemed to have such a distant relationship with some of his other siblings. The occasional passing insistence that he was leading a full life of symbolically important public functions is likewise jarring when the vast majority of the book's pages ignore that; opening at random is much more likely to find a long quote from alleged billets-doux (that are completely innocent on the surface) rather than any detail about those ostensibly onerous tasks that we are told were saving the monarchy during Victoria's long hibernation from the public eye.
review 2: I do not know if I have the energy to write a real review of this biography. Edward VII of Great Britain, known to his family as Bertie, had a pathetic, isolated childhood, a debauched and languishing adulthood as the perpetual Prince of Wales to the Sovereign Queen who would neither die nor relinquish any of her duties to her son, and a brief reign at an advanced age that was not a complete embarrassment. The first and last parts of the book are fairly interesting; the middle is tiresome -- a seemingly endless list of mistresses with whom ol' Berts may or may not have been (but probably was) (though, we haven't much proof) (but, c'mon he is the Prince of Wales) (but, still, that's a lot of fooling around) sexually intimate. His wife, Princess, then Queen, Alexandra, seems nice and decent and I really began to hate him for being such a philanderer. Whatevs. I tend to be one of those Americans who look back longingly to pre-1776 and wish that we were still a part of the Commonwealth; I envy Britons for their queen (and their amazing way with words); however, reading about Bertie raised the hot fire of republicanism within my blood. Phooey. less

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