Cecil Woodham-Smith (1896–1977)
Forfatter af The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849
Om forfatteren
Image credit: Sélection du Reader's Digest
Værker af Cecil Woodham-Smith
Balaclava, La carica dei 600 1 eksemplar
Lady in chief: The story of Florence Nightingale 1 eksemplar
Study Guide: The Charge of the Light Brigade 1 eksemplar
Associated Works
Reader's Digest Great Biographies in Large Type: No Minor Chords / Florence Nightingale (1991) — Bidragyder — 3 eksemplarer
Reader's Digest Condensed Books: Farewell to the King • The Thirteenth Moon • The Three Daughters of Madame Liang… (1971) 1 eksemplar
Vermist...; Wil jij zeven kinderen?; Florence Nightingale; Als de avondwinde bloeit — Bidragyder — 1 eksemplar
Satte nøgleord på
Almen Viden
- Kanonisk navn
- Woodham-Smith, Cecil
- Juridisk navn
- Woodham-Smith, Cecil Blanche
- Andre navne
- Fitzgerald, Cecil Blanche (birth name)
Gordon, Janet (pseudonym) - Fødselsdato
- 1896-04-29
- Dødsdag
- 1977-03-16
- Køn
- female
- Nationalitet
- UK
- Fødested
- Tenby, Wales, UK
- Dødssted
- London, England, UK
- Bopæl
- London, England, UK
France - Uddannelse
- St Hilda's College, University of Oxford (BA|1917)
- Erhverv
- historian
romance novelist - Priser og hædersbevisninger
- Commander, Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (1960)
A.C. Benson Medal (1969)
James Tait Black Memorial Prize (1950) - Kort biografi
- Cecil Blanche FitzGerald was born in Tenby, Wales, to an Irish family. She graduated from Oxford University in 1917 and then went to work as a typist and copywriter for an advertising firm in London. In 1928 she married George Woodham-Smith, a solicitor. She began her literary career in her forties with potboiler novels published under the pseudonym Janet Gordon.She then moved on to serious works of history and biography. She produced four critically-acclaimed and popular books, each dealing with a different aspect of the Victorian era: Florence Nightingale, 1820–1910 (1950), The Reason Why (1953), The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845–1849 (1962), and Queen Victoria: Her Life and Times (1972). In 1960, she was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and in 1969 she received the A.C. Benson Medal for her contributions to British literature.
Medlemmer
Anmeldelser
Aside from being one of the most accessible accounts of what the English did to the Irish ... this is one of those books that pulls together threads you know and threads you don't into one unstoppably readable story.
So this is narrative history. The emphasis is on the former rather than the latter: there is no pretension of neutrality (only a sort of assumed common decency, of which the author is of course a natural and self-proclaimed advocate), it is light on sources, and it avoids troubling ambiguities and questions. Instead we have a brief and rip-roaring yarn that will place the charge of the Light Brigade firmly and vividly in your historical memory. It concentrates on two protagonists, Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan, and reduces them to something like caricatures. Perhaps they were, but I doubt it. I suspect real history is more nuanced than this blithe twentieth century critique of Britain's mid-Victorian ruling classes. But it is an accessible book, and easy to read; you don't have to agree with the author; and her assertions and conclusions are easily ignored. Indeed, they are the least valuable part of the book. One example of author bias that occurs to me to mention: she is full of praise for the Indian Army, and full of scorn for those Victorian English officers who failed to appreciate it. Fair enough. But her father was a career officer of the Indian Army, so too her brother, I think. If this book causes you to think and reflect about things outside the text it can only be a worthwhile read, and it is certainly and enjoyable one, but I do not think serious minds will return to it.… (mere)
I have to admit I started this book with a bad attitude, planning to skim it--it wasn't the one I wanted to read. In the end, I had to admit it was good popular history--shocking how ridiculous the guys in charge were--sound familiar? Nice to know that if nothing else, at a remove of 150 years people agree how ridiculous and disastrous leaders can be. Bonus: as a knitter, it's always fun to read about Raglans, Cardigans, and Balaclavas.
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Associated Authors
Statistikker
- Værker
- 9
- Also by
- 8
- Medlemmer
- 2,475
- Popularitet
- #10,360
- Vurdering
- 4.1
- Anmeldelser
- 35
- ISBN
- 64
- Sprog
- 3
- Udvalgt
- 1
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The author attributes the extravagant behavior of one or two characters to their being of Irish and Italian heritage, yet she does not attribute the behavior of the two mental deviants about whom the story is told to their being British.… (mere)