PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Flora Fraser is the author of the bestselling biography of Queen Caroline, The Unruly Queen, as well as Princesses and The Venus of Empire. She lives in London with her husband and three children. florafraser.com
Flora Fraser has provided an insightful portrait in elegant prose with a dash of wit. The book is based on a mastery of the original sources and brings to life, with much imagination, a wonderful marriage in a period of revolution and war. It is written with a light touch, but is a serious account in every respect. This is a book worthy of its subject -- Robert Middlekauf, author of <i>The Glorious Cause </i> A portrait of marriage rather than a conventional biography ... vivid and detailed ... carefully researched and clearly argued * Oldie * An intimate portrait of America’s original power couple ... Impeccably researched and entertaining * The Lady * George and Martha tells the story of a couple, a family and country with sympathy and huge skill; it is also beautifully illustrated, Fraser is a respectful biographer, scholarly, unshowy and unsensational. She does not attempt to fill the archival gaps with speculation, is explicit about the things that remain unknowable. Fraser’s telling restores Martha Washington to the historical narrative, both as Mother of the Nation and a woman in her own right. Her complex portrait of Washington, meanwhile, frees him from the cult of hero-worship**** * Sunday Telegraph * Elegant ... Fraser mines the sources available to her to reveal the depth of her subjects’ attachment to one another * Literary Review * Scrupulously researched … Fraser paints a wonderfully detailed picture of American family life at the end of the pioneering colonial period … Fraser makes a strong case for Martha as the good woman behind the Great Man of the American Revolution **** -- Kathryn Hughes * Mail on Sunday *
