Secondhand Jean Plaidy Historical Fiction Bargain Book Box SP2696

Secondhand Jean Plaidy Historical Fiction Bargain Book Box — 24 Books

Jean Plaidy — the pen name of the extraordinarily prolific Eleanor Hibbert — wrote over ninety novels bringing the queens, kings, and courtiers of European history vividly to life. This box gathers twenty-four of them, ranging from medieval England to the French Revolution, from the Plantagenets to Queen Victoria, from Catherine de Medici to Mary Queen of Scots. Crucially for collectors and series readers, the box contains the complete Charles II Trilogy, the complete Medici Trilogy, and the opening three books of the Plantagenet Saga — substantial runs through some of Plaidy's richest historical territory.

1. Jean Plaidy — Courts of Love Eleanor of Aquitaine presides over her legendary courts of love in Aquitaine — the great queen in her own right, not merely a king's consort, shaping the culture of courtly romance that would define medieval Europe.
2. Jean Plaidy — Victoria in the Wings (The Victorian Saga, Book 1) The first book in the Victorian Saga follows the young princess navigating the suffocating "Kensington System" engineered by her mother and the scheming Sir John Conroy — the battle for Victoria's independence before she even reached the throne.
3. Jean Plaidy — St Thomas's Eve (The Magnificent Tudor Series) The story of Alice More, wife of Sir Thomas More, as she watches her husband's conscience draw him inexorably toward execution. One of Plaidy's most emotionally powerful Tudor novels.
4. Jean Plaidy — Victoria Victorious Victoria narrates her own reign in first person — the young queen finding her authority, her love for Albert, the long widowhood that followed his death, and the remarkable transformation of Britain across her sixty-three years on the throne.
5. Jean Plaidy — Uneasy Lies the Head Taking its title from Shakespeare's Henry IV — "uneasy lies the head that wears a crown" — this Tudor novel examines the weight of monarchy and the impossible demands made of those who hold it.
6. Jean Plaidy — The Heart of the Lion (The Plantagenet Saga, Book 3) Richard I — the Lionheart — takes centre stage: crusader, warrior-king, and largely absentee ruler of England, whose glory on the battlefield was matched by his neglect of the kingdom he nominally governed.
7. Jean Plaidy — The Lady in the Tower Anne Boleyn's rise and fall — from the king's consuming obsession to the Tower of London and the block. Plaidy understood the terror beneath the glamour of the Tudor court better than almost any other novelist.
8. Jean Plaidy — The Thistle and the Rose Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII, leaves England to marry James IV of Scotland — a diplomatic marriage that plants the seed of the eventual Stuart succession to the English throne.
9. Jean Plaidy — The Queen's Secret Katherine of Valois, widow of Henry V, carries a secret that will shape English history: her clandestine marriage to Owen Tudor, from which the entire Tudor dynasty would spring.
10. Jean Plaidy — The Reluctant Queen Anne Neville, queen to Richard III, is drawn into the dynastic violence of the Wars of the Roses not by ambition but by circumstance — a woman whose life was shaped entirely by the men who fought over the crown.
11. Jean Plaidy — Flaunting, Extravagant Queen (The French Revolution Series, Book 3) Marie Antoinette in all her doomed splendour — the Austrian archduchess who became Queen of France and was destroyed by a revolution she never understood. Book 3 of the French Revolution series (Book 1 also present in this box).
12. Jean Plaidy — Louis the Well-Beloved (The French Revolution Series, Book 1) Louis XV of France — charming, weak, pleasure-loving — presides over the Versailles court while the conditions for revolution slowly assemble around him. The first book in the French Revolution series.
13. Jean Plaidy — In the Shadow of the Crown Mary I — "Bloody Mary" — seen not as a monster but as a woman: Henry VIII's discarded daughter, Catherine of Aragon's loyal child, a queen whose religious convictions led her to decisions history has never forgiven.
14. Jean Plaidy — Royal Road to Fotheringay (The Mary Queen of Scots Series, Book 1) Mary Stuart's story from her French childhood through her turbulent Scottish reign — beautiful, reckless, magnetic, and fatally unable to combine passion with political survival. The first of two books in this box on Mary's life.
15. Jean Plaidy — Queen of This Realm Elizabeth I tells her own story — the Virgin Queen, Gloriana, the greatest political survivor of her age — in one of Plaidy's most ambitious and satisfying first-person narratives.
16. Jean Plaidy — The Captive Queen of Scots (The Mary Queen of Scots Series, Book 2) Mary's flight to England and the long, bitter captivity that followed — nineteen years as Elizabeth's prisoner before the axe fell at Fotheringay. A companion to Royal Road to Fotheringay, also in this box.
17. Jean Plaidy — The Plantagenet Prelude (The Plantagenet Saga, Book 1) Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II — one of history's great power couples — at the foundation of the Plantagenet dynasty. The beginning of a saga that continues through Books 2 and 3, also in this box.
18. Jean Plaidy — The Revolt of the Eaglets (The Plantagenet Saga, Book 2) Henry II's sons rise against their father — Eleanor of Aquitaine imprisoned for her part in the rebellion, the king's authority tested from within his own family. A continuation of The Plantagenet Prelude.
19. Jean Plaidy — Here Lies Our Sovereign Lord (The Charles II Trilogy, Book 3) The final volume of the Charles II Trilogy — the Merry Monarch in his last years, still charming and politically shrewd, still surrounded by mistresses, but beginning to sense the limits of even his extraordinary survival instincts. All three Charles II books are present in this box.
20. Jean Plaidy — Madame Serpent (The Medici Trilogy, Book 1) Catherine de Medici arrives in France as the neglected wife of a future king — tolerated, overlooked, and quietly storing up reserves of patience and ambition that would make her the most powerful woman in Europe. The beginning of a complete trilogy.
21. Jean Plaidy — The Italian Woman (The Medici Trilogy, Book 2) Catherine de Medici as Queen Mother — the real power behind the French throne, steering her weak sons through the religious wars tearing France apart. The second book of the complete Medici trilogy.
22. Jean Plaidy — Queen Jezebel (The Medici Trilogy, Book 3) The final reckoning of Catherine de Medici's reign — culminating in the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572, when thousands of French Protestants were slaughtered at her instigation. The darkest and most compelling volume of the trilogy.
23. Jean Plaidy — The Wandering Prince (The Charles II Trilogy, Book 1) Charles Stuart in exile — the young king without a kingdom, wandering the courts of Europe after his father's execution, waiting for the moment that would bring him home. The opening of a complete trilogy.
24. Jean Plaidy — A Health Unto His Majesty (The Charles II Trilogy, Book 2) The Restoration — Charles II returns to England in triumph and sets about becoming the most entertainingly dissolute monarch in English history. The middle volume of the complete Charles II Trilogy.