Non-fiction ~ biography/royalty
Published 29th June 1933
Approx. 86,000 words
THE CRITICS
Mr.
E. F. Benson's literary activities are more than admirable,
they are amazing, and his agile pen has perhaps never been more
happily, or more usefully, employed than in drawing for us his
"speaking" likeness of the Monarch who, in nine short
years, stamped himself indelibly on English and European, history.
Mr. Benson's admiration for Edward VII is born of intimate
knowledge of that King's character and career; he gives many a subtle
story, many an important
sidelight, many a stinging detail not to be found in Mr. Sidney Lee's
1,600 closely written pages, the avoirdupois of which may have been a
little discouraging to the general reader. [...]
Mr. Benson has shown Edward VII to be intensely human, prone to
the faults from which his father was free but possessing merits
wholly beyond the outlook of that virtuous Prince. Generous no less
than just, King Edward will go down to posterity as a most dignified,
and withal most lovable, personage, and posterity will do well to
hang up on their walls the faithful, if highly coloured, portrait due
to Mr. Benson's skill. It is no figure of speech to suggest that
unless the first output of King Edward the Seventh is of
unusual dimensions, successive editions will rapidly follow, and it
is therefore not ungracious to point to one error. Lord Kitchener
waited on King Edward when King Edward's end was near, not to tender
his resignation as Commander-in-Chief in India, but to receive
absolution from the promise he had been coerced to make with regard
to assuming the unnecessary and unsatisfactory Mediterranean Command.
~George
Arthur in The Spectator,
29/06/1933 [heavily abridged: the original is 1,050 words]
The
only criticism which can be made of this excellent book is that it
does not handle its subject in the direct and intimate manner which
has hitherto characterized the work of its author. E. F. Benson has
already published two charming volumes of memoirs covering the period
which is the theme of this book: As We Were
and As We Are. One
gets the impression, in reading his biography of King Edward, that he
was a little hampered by these earlier works. For Mr. Benson was a
contemporary of King Edward; he knew the greater part of the actors
in the drama, he was their friend and their intimate; but it is only
rarely that he allows himself in this work to make use of the
remarkable personal knowledge he has of his subject. He writes of
Edward VII as an excellent and conscientious historian, but a little
as he might write of Henry VIII or Richard of Bordeaux. That
doubtless was the task which he set himself; the reader, however,
cannot but prefer those passages in which Mr. Benson consents to
forget that he is a historian in order to become a memorialist.
~André
Maurois in The Saturday Review,
23/09/1933 [again heavily abridge: original 1,195 words]
This is not a
contribution to biography, or to history, or to literature, but it
has its uses. Mr. Benson presents all the
salient facts in the life of Edward VII, and in the main he discusses
them fairly and intelligently. He does not become indignant at the
King's well-known lapses from sound Christian morals, but instead
tries to explain them as the result of the cold and Puritanical
training of his youth. As sovereign he certainly was not a shining
light, but equally certainly he was not stupid. "By virtue of a
detached fairmindedness he could both disagree and appreciate,"
and unlike his mother, he always differentiated between persons and
politics. Altogether, he was probably a good change for England after
Queen Victoria. There are many illustrations, and also an index.
~The
American Mercury, 11/1933
A generation has
almost grown up since King Edward died, and far less than half the
population can clearly remember when he was Prince of Wales. Yet he
seems a wonderfully familiar figure to us all; and here is the third
important book to be published on him within a few years. The
official biography by Sir Sidney Lee was published in 1927, and a
short, brilliant study by Mrs H E Wortham this year. It is,
therefore, inevitable that this book has little that is new in it,
but if Mr Benson leads us along familiar paths, he guides us with
such zest and originality that it is difficult to remember that we
knew it all before. I think that he has described the historical and
political background with a clearness and simplicity that are wholly
admirable, in front of which the King stands out ~ a shrewd, gay,
vital, friendly man. [...]
When the historian
of the future comes to decide the importance of King Edward in
European history, he may not agree with all that Mr Benson says in
his appreciation of the King, but he can hardly fail to be stimulated
and charmed by this delightful study of a very human man.
~Roger
Fulford in The Yorkshire Post,
29/06/1933
