Mary Queen of Scots
Although most writings about Mary Stuart (1542-87), Queen of  Scots, have been historically inaccurate, modern scholarship has  revealed the details of her dramatic life as wife to three  husbands and queen in three kingdoms (France, Scotland, and  England). Any new work on Mary should provide a fresh  interpretation or presentation. Watkins (Jane Austen: In Style)  has attempted the latter in an illustrated history, yet the  result is neither a quality coffee-table book nor a readable  biography. The lavish photographs of historical places and  high-quality illustrations cannot make up for an overly dramatic  narrative full of simplistic historical judgments. None of the  period quotations has scholarly attribution, and most are  presented in a bold, oversized font, often literally unreadable  as they are superimposed on illustrations. Lastly, a book that  lists in its bibliography James A. Mackay's In My End Is My  Beginning (St. Martin's, 2000), generally considered to be  plagiarized, cannot be reliable for the general reader. The  curious should see Antonia Fraser's sympathetic biography, Mary  Queen of Scots (published in 1969 and frequently reprinted),  with the more studious turning to Gordon Donaldson's sound Mary,  Queen of Scots (o.p.) and Jenny Wormald's politically astute  Mary Queen of Scots: A Study in Failure (Tauris, 2000). James  Tasato Mellone, Queens Coll., CUNYCopyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.