Shipping – Royal Gatherings, Volume 1

ROYAL GATHERINGS, Volume 1 – SHIPPING!

Just a quick note to give a sign of life and let everyone know that Royal Gatherings, Volume 1: 1859-1914, the latest collaboration between Ilana D. Miller and our founder Arturo E. Beéche started shipping last Friday!

We have ample number of copies and we hope that our subscribers and readers will take the plunge and acquire a copy, or two, or more!

:-)

Hopefully, Coryne Hall, who does book reviews for Eurohistory will get her review copy soon. Once she has finished her review, which we hope will be a good one (fingers crossed!), we will post it here.

Meanwhile, if interested in purchasing a copy of the book, you can do so by emailing us directly at:

books@eurohistory.com

or by going to AMAZON.com:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0985460318

Book Review: A Royal Christmas

“A Royal Christmas”, by Jeremy Archer. (Elliott & Thompson) 312 pages,  36 illustrations.

How did the royal family spend Christmas?  Jeremy Archer has delved in the royal archives to give us the personal thoughts of the royals during the Christmas period. With extracts from the diaries of Queen Victoria, George V, Queen Mary, the Duke of Windsor and many others, some never published before, as well as letters and diaries of members of the court, it makes fascinating reading.

Organised thematically, it covers such topics as Christmas and conflict, Christmas pastimes, festive feasts, the Christmas broadcasts and a look at how the courtiers viewed Christmas in the royal household. The wartime entries make especially poignant reading. “Rather sad without a tree or anything but one does not feel in a festive mood,” Queen Mary wrote in her diary in 1914.  Some interesting facts emerge as well – did you know that a pie containing 100 woodcocks was sent as a gift by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland until 1931?

In Victorian times tableaux and pageants formed a great part of the festivities, both at home and abroad, providing gorgeous pictures of the royal children - little  Princes Georg and Friedrich Christian of Saxony dressed, respectively, as one of St Nicholas’s helpers and a Christmas tree in 1903;  Prince Ludwig of Bavaria as Father Christmas in 1919; Karl Borwin of Mecklenburg-Strelitz as a star, 1891.  Presents, of course, were extremely important and chosen with the utmost care and it was considered bad form to remove them before they had been admired.

The text is in ‘bite-sized’ pieces too, so you can dip in and out of it at will. The perfect treat for a winter’s evening.

Coryne Hall

Book Review: Jubilee 2012. Celebrations and Tours

“Jubilee 2012. Celebrations and Tours”.  Ingrid Seward, Joe Little and others. Published by Rex Publications/Majesty magazine. 204 pages with coloured illustrations on every page.

“Memories of this year’s happy events will brighten our lives for years to come,” said the Queen in a televised message, and as the Diamond Jubilee year comes to a close what better way to mark it than with this lovely book.

‘Majesty’ editors Ingrid Seward and Joe Little, together with royal press correspondents Lynne Bell, Richard Palmer and Camilla Tominey, have compiled a month by month account of all the festivities at home and abroad during this historic year. The focus is very much on the Queen, starting with the low key events marking her accession day in February, through all the tours around the country and, of course, the actual Jubilee weekend itself, from the pouring rain of the river pageant, through to the lively concert at the palace and the pathos of Her Majesty alone at St Paul’s when the Duke of Edinburgh was hospitalised with an infection.  Other members of the family are not forgotten either. Who could forget Prince Harry’s exuberant tour of Jamaica; or the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s triumphant Asia-Pacific visit; Charles and Camilla’s  trip  to Scandinavia; or the Queen’s historic visit to Ireland.

Beautifully written and lavishly illustrated, this is the perfect souvenir of an historic year for the Queen and the British royal family.  A ‘must have’ for all royal watchers.

Coryne Hall 

To purchase visit: http://shop.majestymagazine.com/shop.php?cat_id=152