Cardinal Pole; or, The Days of Philip and Mary: An Historical Romance

Ainsworth, William Harrison, 1805-1882Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.6
Word count
773K words
Chapters
78

Tags

English Originals Historical Fiction Historical ReappraisalPalace IntriguePower GameMoral DilemmaReligious ConflictVictorian EraTudor Era

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Cardinal Pole; Or, The Days of Philip and Mary: An Historical Romance by AinsworthAuthor: Ainsworth, William Harrison, 1805-1882,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Apr 7, 2017

Editor's review

This historical romance by the prolific Victorian novelist Ainsworth is set during the joint reign of Mary I and Philip II and centers on Cardinal Pole. It displays the author's characteristic historical scene-setting and plotting, weaving together the political tensions surrounding the Reformation, court relations, and individual fates. It suits readers interested in late Tudor history as a fictionalized supplement. As a public-domain Project Gutenberg e-text, it preserves the language of the original, and readers should adapt to the narrative pace and length of a nineteenth-century English novel. Its value lies not in scholarly rigor but in its fictional evocation of the era's atmosphere and human predicaments, making it a sample of the British historical novel tradition.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. First learn about the joint reign of Mary I and Philip II and the English Reformation, then begin the text.
  2. Read alongside a timeline of Tudor events to help locate characters and events.
  3. Proceed chapter by chapter and take notes on character relationships to avoid confusion amid the large cast.
  4. If the English original proves difficult, read popular history books on the period first and then return to it.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
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  37. 37
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  44. 44
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  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
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  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
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  66. 66
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  68. 68
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  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
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FAQ

Is this book a strict work of history? No. It is a historical romance that uses real figures and a real era as the backdrop for fictionalized narrative; its plot and characterization include invented elements and should not be cited directly as historical sources.
What historical background is helpful before reading? It helps to first understand the Catholic-Protestant conflict in England after Henry VIII's Reformation, Mary I's policies restoring Catholicism, and her marriage to Philip II of Spain, which form the novel's important historical framework.
Why is the language relatively difficult? The original is a nineteenth-century English novel with long sentences, a slow narrative pace, and religious and court terminology. Reading chapter by chapter with background materials usually allows gradual adaptation.

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About the author

Ainsworth, William Harrison, 1805-1882 Author

William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-1882) was an English historical novelist; public information about him in Chinese sources is relatively limited. Twenty of his works are held in the collection, mostly historical romances and popular adventure tales, including The Lancashire Witches, The Tower of London, Rookwood, Guy Fawkes, Jack Sheppard, and Windsor Castle. His novels often draw on famous events in English history, court intrigues, and folk legends, with tightly plotted narratives that emphasize atmosphere and dramatic conflict, frequently setting romanticized fictional stories against real historical figures and places. This approach made his works widely popular in the nineteenth century and offered a model for later popular historical fiction.