Read of the Week

Over the past couple of weeks I have been trudging through several Tudor books and recently finished Mistress Anne: The Exceptional Life of Anne Boleyn by Carolly Erickson. This is an older book written about Anne's life. It opens with her journey accompanying Mary Tudor on her voyage to become Queen of France. The book completely omits Anne's early life and implies that this is her first time abroad which is completely inaccurate. There are more inaccuracies that made this book almost unbearable for me to read. Ms. Erickson relies heavily on rumor in her writing, something a seasoned Anne historian will find frustrating. She asserts the rumors of Anne having a sixth finger and a large, disfiguring mole on her neck. We know from the Victorian excavation of St. Peter Ad Vincula that none of the women buried there had an extra finger. In fact, these myths were not perpetuated until the reign of Elizabeth I in an effort to undermine her claim to the throne by slandering her mother and accusing her of witchcraft. Erickson also takes extreme liberties in describing how Anne would have  felt and what she thought during certain events. As no autobiographical information exists to confirm her statements, I find them not only unnecessary but also misleading to the reader.This is not a book I would recommend for serious Anne enthusiasts as the inaccuracies overshadow any positive contributions Erickson might have made to the study and scholarship of Anne Boleyn.

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