Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart

by Frank McLynn

Who was this man Charles Edward Stuart who became known to legend as Bonnie Prince Charlie? Frank McLynn pursues this fascinating question in his highly acclaimed study of the "Young Pretender," whose unsuccessful challenge to the Hanoverian throne was followed by the crushing defeat at Culloden in 1746. The prince was to play out the rest of his career dogged by a sense of failure and betrayal. Yet Frank McLynn argues powerfully that failure was far from inevitable, and history in 1745 came closer to taking a quite different turn.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, European History

656 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Frank McLynn is an English author, biographer, historian and journalist. He is noted for critically acclaimed biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte, Robert Louis Stevenson, Carl Jung, Richard Francis Burton and Henry Morton Stanley.

McLynn was educated at Wadham College, Oxford and the University of London. He was Alistair Horne Research Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford (1987–88) and was visiting professor in the Department of Literature at the University of Strathclyde (1996–2001) and professorial fellow at Goldsmiths College London (2000 - 2002) before becoming a full-time writer.

Reviews

[Ben Bergonzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent biography that fully brings out the inner demons and psychological faultlines that led to the Prince's intensely eventful life.

[Joe Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always wary of reading a book that doesn’t have notes and sources, that’s the reason for the four stars instead of five. Definitely was a great read and well researched.

[Guy Winter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful account of BPC's spectacular fall from grace and increasingly and depressingly futile quest for a Stuart restoration- as insightful and empathetic in its psychology as it is well-researched in its history. Essential reading for anyone keen to get behind the shortcake box mythology of the '45!

[Richard Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good life of a sad man.