The Lisle Letters : An Abridgement

London: Secker & Warburg. Very Good/Very Good. 1983. First Edition. Hard Cover. 8vo 0436079054 Dust jacket complete except price clipped. Red cloth spine with bright gilt titlng over boards, slightly bowed. No ownership marks.436 pp clean and tight. LisleLetters. Edited by MURIEL ST. CLARE BYRNE Selected and arranged by Bridget Boland. Foreword by Hugh Trevor-Roper. "A fascinating family saga, a sixteenth century War and Peace or A la recherche du temps perdu, " writes Hugh Trevor-Roper of the six-volume The Lisle Letters edited by Muriel St. Clare Byrne. In the New York Times Book Review, J. H. Plumb called it "one of the most traordinary historical works to be published in the century ... a vast tapestry of Tudor life." G. R. Elton wrote in the London Review [Books, "All, one hopes, will acquaint themselves with the world of the Lisles." So that all may, indeed, acquaint themselves with the world of the Lisles, here is a one-volume abridgement of the acclaimed six volumes. For that monumental work, Muriel 5t. Clare Byrne transcribed 1,900 letters, weaving them together with her own brilliant wmmentary to produce a magnificent portrait of family life lived against the background of intrigue, terror, and politics that was the court of Henry VIII. Now playwright Bridget Boland has selected, condensed, and rearranged material from the letters and Miss Byrne's commentary for the pleasure of the general reader. The Lisle letters were assembled originally in search of evidence to be used in the trial for treason of Arthur Plantagenet, Lord Lisle. We can, as Miss Boland writes, watch for the makings of that situation in each new character introduced and in each new development in the story that culminated in Lord Lisle's being sent to the Tower of London. But apart from this superb, slow-building drama, the letters bring us an unparalleled glimpse of day-to-day Tudor family concerns. They were written from 1533 to 1540, when Lord Lisle was Deputy of Calais and all the family's many affairs in England, France, and Calais had to .