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The Great Man: Sir Robert Walpole - Scoundrel, Genius and Britain's First Prime Minister
 
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The Great Man: Sir Robert Walpole - Scoundrel, Genius and Britain's First Prime Minister (Hardcover)

by Edward Pearce (Author)
1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
RRP: £25.00
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 496 pages
  • Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd; illustrated edition edition (1 Feb 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0224071815
  • ISBN-13: 978-0224071819
  • Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.5 x 4.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 325,161 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

BBC History Magazine

`an effective biography that is sensitive to the nuances of politics in
this most interesting of periods.'


Scotsman, by Michael Kerrigan

`[Pearce] is utterly at home in the... Augustan political
culture... [alert] to the deep continuities between then and now'.
See all Product Description

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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews
5 star:    (0)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:
 (4)
1 star:
 (4)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
1.8 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Great Man, Shame about the English, 31 May 2007
By J. Woollard "Hotspur" (Essex, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Be warned! Reading this will not be a happy experience. Pearce's mangled English is truly appalling. I have to admit that I have so far only reached page 43, but I am going to struggle to get any further. Paragraphs such as this are unfortunately all to common:

"The English Succession had been resolved in 1700 after another death, that of Princess Anne's only surviving child, poor William of Gloucester, ailing all his short, calculated-over life. A decision about the succession after Anne's then remotely projected death had been postponed in the deliberations over the Bill of Rights because of his birth. William dead, and his mother, who even at thirty-five was far from healthy, it was made in the Act of Settlement. The inheritance of Sophia of Hanover and her heirs was proclaimed. Louis (XIV) might/might not think the claims to the crown of James's son worth sponsoring, but the gesture had drawn him in. Arguments from the pacific Tories about costly wars in far away countries on behalf of Johnny Foreigner were doomed by all the fears of suborning and invasion implicit in that chevalieresque gesture. The element of damned fool in Louis XIV should never be underestimated." Ugh!
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars the great man missing, 17 Feb 2007
I agree. the book was terribly written and inaccurate in some places. Walpole was not a "commoner" at Eton. He was a "colleger" or a scholar. This kind of slip just enhanced the impression that book was hastily cobbled together. Slightly disappointing. One got very little impression of the personality of the man or his interests.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Gamma Minus, 20 Nov 2007
I agree. This was a very poor book. It is not just that the author's prose style is weak and that he cannot handle a narrative. There is a more fundamental weakness. Sir Robert Walpole never appears. The author deals with every major event in Walpole's life point of some other protagonist. To give a few examples, the story of the Jacobite plot of 1722 is told entirely from the stand point of the principle conspirator Atterbury with only a few brief references to Walpole. The South Sea Bubble from the point of view of the directors of the failed company. Walpole's manoeuvrings against Carteret are told entirely from Carteret's point of view. We never hear anything about Walpole's relationship with the King or his colleagues. His motivations, his style, his speaking in the Commons are untouched. His personality, on any view a large one, never appears. He has a cameo role in his own biography. I finished this book but felt that I had been wronged.

Implicit in the publication of any book is a promise made to the reader by the author. Edward Pearce promised a biography but he failed to deliver.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Unreadable
I have to agree with some of the previous comments: unreadable, and shame on you Edward Pearce. I was about 30 pages in when I found myself checking to see if the book had been... Read more
Published 16 months ago by W. Martin

2.0 out of 5 stars Lost Opportunity
There is certainly a need for a one volume biography of Sir Robert Walpole. Unfortunately this is unsatisfying. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Junius

2.0 out of 5 stars The Great Man; Sir Roberts Walpole
The content of this book is comprehesive but I am afraid the writing,"?journalese", makes it very difficult to read: long and convoluted sentences. Read more
Published 23 months ago by avidreader

1.0 out of 5 stars One of the worst written biographies...EVER!
This book is a total disgrace. Pearce has written interesting works in the past, but this so-called biography of Walpole is barely literate. Read more
Published 23 months ago by A. H. Lee

4.0 out of 5 stars In Defence of Pearce (if not Walpole)
I'll try to balance out the very negative comments on this book with some praise.
First of all some of the criticisms are justified to an extent... Read more
Published 23 months ago by A reader

1.0 out of 5 stars Help English required
I was so looking forward to reading it but Edward Pearce's appalling writing style means I gave up with 50 pages to go. Quite frankly a disgrace. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Mr. Geoffrey Noble

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