Mary Boleyn : the Mistress of Kings

Alison WeirPublisher: Ballantine Books , New York , 2011
ISBN:9780345521330 Classification: N942.05Wei

Library Journal Having explored the final days of Anne Boleyn in The Lady in the Tower, popular historian Weir now turns her attention to Anne's sister Mary. Briefly the mistress of the French king Francis I and later of Henry VIII, Mary eventually wed a commoner for love and faded into relative obscurity—until Philippa Gregory's novel The Other Boleyn Girl drew her onto the stage again. Though any study of Mary is bound to be hampered by the scarcity of solid evidence about large parts of her life, Weir has striven to provide the most complete assessment possible; while she indulges in some well-researched speculation to fill the gaps, she remains clear about facts vs. what must be left to guesswork. Furthermore, she devotes much effort to examining the development of Mary's historical stature and dispelling the most egregious rumors—in particular, those surrounding Mary's reputation as "a very great whore" (neatly dismissed by Weir as a myth) and the paternity of her two eldest children. VERDICT As the first full biography of Mary Boleyn, this is a valuable resource both for historians and for casual readers interested in an accurate account of this recently popularized historical figure. [See Prepub Alert, 4/4/11.]—Kathleen McCallister, Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia, Lib.

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