Margaret George

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Margaret George

Margaret George (born January 19, 1943 in Nashville , Tennessee ) is an American writer of historical novels . She has been fascinated by foreign cultures since childhood. When her research isn't taking her to foreign lands, she lives in Madison , Wisconsin . Already with the more than 1,300-page debut Henry VIII. (Dt .: I, Henry VIII. ) Scored her her breakthrough as a writer.

life and work

Margaret George's family tree has both Scottish and English and Irish branches. One of these branches is made up of Quakers who came to America in the early 18th century . Another side of the family settled in Mississippi . Margaret George was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1943. Her father was from a town near Oxford , Mississippi, where William Faulkner also lived. Both parents were taken with the literature, which they counted equally the traditional southern ballads and short stories. The father's job as a diplomat meant that the family often moved to other countries.

The Georges went to Taiwan on a cargo ship with four-year-old Margaret . Two years later they moved to Tel Aviv , from where they traveled to other parts of the Middle East . Her father's diplomatic path then took her to Berlin and Bonn , and finally ended up in Washington, DC . Margaret George attended high school there .

Even in the days in Israel - when she ran out of reading material - she had written short stories. An employee of the Grosset & Dunlap publishing house, who examined the horse stories she had submitted, said she had a talent that was still hidden, but had to work hard on her spelling. Furthermore, she kept tortoises in Israel and developed an affinity for animal and nature topics. Both interests later culminated in a double degree in English literature and biology at Tufts University . She then received a Magistra Artium (MA) in Ecology from Stanford University . As a result, she got involved in various environmental and animal welfare organizations . Professionally, the combination of her expertise led her to the National Cancer Institute (within the National Institutes of Health ) in Bethesda , Maryland as a scientific documentary for four years .

After their marriage, she and her husband moved to St. Louis , Missouri , then to Uppsala , Sweden, and finally to Madison , Wisconsin , where the couple have lived for more than thirty years. The adult, married daughter lives in Washington, DC

Meanwhile Margaret continued to write, albeit slowly and on one project at a time. In St. Louis she suddenly had the idea to write a "psychobiography" of Henry VIII. She had never seen anything like it, but was convinced that the English king was a victim of bad tradition and that she should save his good name. Her academic background meant that she would only delve into the novel itself after doing a thorough research of the literature and science about Henry VIII. She sought guidance from a Tudor historian at Washington University for a reading list and systematically pursued the subject from then on. There was actually fourteen years between your original idea and the publication, which bears the addition “ autobiography ”, because Heinrich could have written it himself. The book made an impact for several reasons: first, because no one had ever written a novel that sympathized with the king, second, because it spanned his entire life from before birth to after his death, and third, because it was so rich in facts . It is still the only book about his entire life and the only one that presents him in a differentiated way. It experienced several editions.

After Henry VIII , she wrote Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles (1992) and The Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997) in 1986 . The latter became the template for a television miniseries produced by ABC in 1999 with Timothy Dalton and Billy Zane in the lead roles. The novel has been translated into nineteen languages, including Finnish and Korean . With the filming , she came close to her childhood dream of becoming an actress , because she was allowed to visit the sets in Morocco and London and attend the recordings. At the premiere at the legendary Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard , she walked the red carpet with the movie stars . She sees it positively that she ultimately became a writer and not an actress, because, she says, she can work in several film professions at the same time by instructing all processes, playing all roles and decorating all locations.

Mary Magdalene takes center stage in Mary Called Magdalene ; this work was published in 2002. As a child in school, she had worked on a project that recreated the Trojan horse in wood and on a smaller scale . In 2006 she portrayed Helena ( Helen of Troy ) in the form of a novel , who according to Greek mythology was the cause of the Trojan War . In the same year, she also published an illustrated children's book with her pet turtle, Lucille Lost .

What began as an idea has developed into a trademark: She became a biographer and spokeswoman for those who have been stigmatized by official historiography . She chooses her characters on the basis of her own feelings, people who address her in some way, and disregards the static general opinions about them without bias. For George, empathizing with these strange life stories is always like an exciting different life from a safe distance. However, because of years of intensive scientific research it must cover topics in ancient times or in the United Kingdom the Renaissance limit. Every topic that preoccupies her causes her to explore places and meet people to whom she would otherwise have no access, and that means that every book project is a laborious search for knowledge. How much this is appreciated by readers is shown by the fact that her novels are regularly featured on the New York Times bestseller list. In addition, according to a survey of more than 800 readers carried out in 2012, George is one of the ten best authors of historical novels.

Works

Novels

  • Henry VIII , my life. Novel. With notes from jester Will Somers. Schneekluth, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7951-1103-X . (Original title: The Autobiography of Henry VIII. With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers , 1986)
  • Maria Stuart . The novel of her life. Novel. Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1993, ISBN 3-7857-0687-1 . (Original title: Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles. A Novel , 1992)
  • Cleopatra . The novel of her life. Novel. With letter work by Axel Bertram . Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1998, ISBN 3-7857-0929-3 . (Original title: The Memoirs of Cleopatra , 1997)
  • Mary Magdalene . The novel of her life. Novel. Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2003, ISBN 3-7857-2125-0 . (Original title: Mary, Called Magdalene , 2002)
  • Helena , called the beautiful. My life between Sparta and Troy. Novel. Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2007, ISBN 978-3-7857-2299-2 . (Original title: Helen of Troy , 2006)
  • Elizabeth I . A novel . Macmillan Publishers, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-230-75581-9 . (Not published in German.)
  • The Confessions of Young Nero . Berkley Books, New York 2017, ISBN 978-0-451-47338-7 . (Not published in German.)
  • The Splendor Before the Dark. A Novel of the Emperor Nero (= Nero Series ; 2). Berkley Books, New York 2018, ISBN 978-0-399-58462-6 . (Not published in German.)

Children's books

  • Lucille Lost. A true adventure. Viking Juvenile, New York 2006, ISBN 0-670-06093-3 . (Not published in German.)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n About Margaret. In: margaretgeorge.com. Accessed November 17, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b Margaret George. In: histo-couch.de. Literatur-Couch Medien GmbH & Co. KG, accessed on November 17, 2019 .
  3. ^ Crystal King: Interview with Margaret George + # DebBallGiveaway of Confessions of Young Nero. In: thedebutanteball.com. The Debutant Ball, March 11, 2017, accessed November 17, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Catherine Hokin: Historia Interviews: Margaret George. In: historiamag.com. Historia. Magazine of the Historical Writers' Association, March 9, 2017, accessed November 17, 2019 .
  5. ↑ MK Tod: The Top 10 Historical Fiction Authors. Readers recently chose their favorite 10 historical fiction authors. Who are they, and what makes them stand out? In: washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com. September 19, 2013, accessed November 17, 2019 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME George, Margaret
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Nashville