Harold Harefoot

by Mark Craster-Chambers

This is a pocket biography of King Harold Harefoot, son of Cnut who ruled England from 1037-1040. He was an elected King. The book is a short exploration of the key features of the reign, including the blinding of Alfred Atheling.

Genres: History

70 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 4, 2013

Reviews

[Jon Greenlander · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is why self publishing gets a bad rap. When any kind of standard goes out the window, you get this. Why is there a stock image of a skull on the cover of the first edition? Why does the new edition look like a book about hackers? Why is the author dressed like he’s in KISS? How could there possibly be enough material about Harold Harefoot to warrant a book about him? Why would you attempt to write a book if you won’t get a proofreader? You would be far better off reading Harold Harefoot’s Wikipedia page than risking a few bucks on this. Seriously.

[Jane Wilkinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short biography of one of England's lesser known kings. The author has done his best with the few primary sources available but almost inevitably there's a fair amount of 'padding' and repetition. Unfortunately the text is also riddled with poor grammar and spelling errors (the word 'altar' is spelt as 'alter' throughout). Otherwise it's an entertaining little book with some very interesting detail.

[Douglas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe the only book on Harold Harefoot? Author does a very nice job of setting the scene for his ascension to the English throne, including the really crazy family dynamics with his brothers and step-mother. Great job - hopefully we see a few more of these smaller histories for the other Anglo-Saxon and Danish kings before William.

[Duncan Musgrove · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it depends on what you expect with a history book and if you expected a dry historical biography of an old obscure Saxon King, then this is not it. This is a chatty personal narrative that dips in and out of the writers views on history, mixing these in with a story telling write up of Harold Harefoot and his time. Now I was 50/50 on it, but my teenage daughter, who loves history, picked it up, read it in one go and absolutely loved it -it encouraged her to go on and look up other things on the Saxons. So it is an interesting read, not heavy. But it is not too serious either, so you need to read it with an open approach. Looking at reviews on other sites people tend to really like it, or don't - a bit like Marmite lol. But as my daughter gave it a massive thumbs up, I have to give it four stars! And its a subject well worth writing on. Not a long read, can do it in two reads easy. I liked this authors other book on Eadred better!