Today I saw the damage that a PG book can make on the public. Someone took PG's account of what happened to The Princes In The Tower in The White Queen as fact. It was that moment that made me realise that people do view her books as historical fact.

And then my book on The Grey Sisters by De Luise arrived in the mail and I was horrified to see the following praise for the book

“A thrilling read that could sit comfortably beside any novel by Philippa Gregory.” Which just re-inforces the misconception that Gregory is a historian not a fiction writer.

Claire-Louise said:

Bill1978 said:

Today I saw the damage that a PG book can make on the public. Someone took PG's account of what happened to The Princes In The Tower in The White Queen as fact. It was that moment that made me realise that people do view her books as historical fact.

And then my book on The Grey Sisters by De Luise arrived in the mail and I was horrified to see the following praise for the book

“A thrilling read that could sit comfortably beside any novel by Philippa Gregory.” Which just re-inforces the misconception that Gregory is a historian not a fiction writer.

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I think this is what the problem is with her novels, a lot of people take too much of them as fact! Also, Phillipa Gregory has appeared on episodes of Time Team and sometimes appears on documentaries as a Historian, therefore I think that some people presume that her novels will be at least 50% fact, where they are actually more like 0.1 % fact.
When Historians write Historical fiction they need to be very clear that they are intending their novels to be a piece of entertainment rather than a reliable source of information.

Claire-Louise and Bill, it gets worse than that, I just had a spy on some official Philippa Gregory sites (and she does have a lot of ardent fans – be afraid, be very afraid) and here is a sample of what is on them. On her bibliography she is said to have a history degree from the university of Sussex (is this true?), on her official site she is stated as being an “established historian” and on her official publisher page it says that she has (and I'm trying to stay calm at this point) “a commitment to historical accuracy”. With comments like this doing the rounds what hope is there for anyone that doesn't know better, they will learn their history from PG and take it all as fact. I must sign off now as I need to bang my head against the wall a few times before going to bed (I'm already getting funny looks from my dog as I'm writing this).

Claire-Louise said:

 

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Commitment to historical accuracy  …..'The Other Boleyn Girl' is about as accurate as 'Carry on Henry'

Thanks for making me laugh Claire-Louise. One of these films was historically inaccurate, had saucy romps, over the top acting and was funny in all the wrong places, the other film was “Carry on Henry”.

Claire-Louise said:

Neil Kemp said:

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Thanks for making me laugh Claire-Louise. One of these films was historically inaccurate, had saucy romps, over the top acting and was funny in all the wrong places, the other film was “Carry on Henry”.
 

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LOL    'The Other Boleyn Girl' vs 'Carry on Henry' for the award for best comedy…..

and the winner is……'The Other Boleyn Girl', oh wait a minute, who put a period drama in the comedy category! How could anyone make such a mistake! 

I'm just being a bit mean about Phillipa Gregory's work now aren't I ! Hope I don't offend any PG fans!

Don't worry, Claire-Louise, I don't think you're going to find any bleeding-heart PG fans around here…

@ Neil Kemp:  I've never seen “Carry on Henry”, but your comment still made me laugh 😀

Claire-Louise said:

Commitment to historical accuracy  …..'The Other Boleyn Girl' is about as accurate as 'Carry on Henry'

LOL. I loved Carry on Henry because I knew it's supposed to all be false and for a laugh. The Other Boleyn Girl was just annoying. Screaming 'INACCURACY' every ten seconds really doesn't add to film enjoyment…

DuchessofBrittany said:

 

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That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. The only commitment PG has is to make lost of cash selling second rate novels masked as “history” to the masses who don't know (or want to know) any different.

Second rate novels, duchess, since when has PG ever been that good?

Anyanka said:

Neil Kemp said:

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Second rate novels, duchess, since when has PG ever been that good?
 

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That's 2 beers now you owe me.

At least you missed the lap-top this time.

Neil Kemp said:

DuchessofBrittany said:

 

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That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. The only commitment PG has is to make lost of cash selling second rate novels masked as “history” to the masses who don't know (or want to know) any different.

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Second rate novels, duchess, since when has PG ever been that good?

You're right, Neil. I am giving her novels more credit than they deserve. I'm not sure how to quantify the quality or lackthereof of any PG novels? Rubbish perhaps!?

DuchessofBrittany said:

You're right, Neil. I am giving her novels more credit than they deserve. I'm not sure how to quantify the quality or lackthereof of any PG novels? Rubbish perhaps!?

What's the difference between a PG novel and Rubbish? Rubbish sometimes gets picked up!

I have read The Other Boleyn Girl and The Boleyn Inheritance, and, quite frankly, they just made me angry.

The way Ms. Gregory played with historical dates and the like is simply horrible. The fact that she made Mary Boleyn the younger of the two Boleyn girls, the innocent and sweet one…just to be able to depict Anne as an absolute b****h, and, to add insult to injury, heavily implied that Anne really slept with her own brother (!!!)…it just appaled me. It really did.

In essence, while reading her book I felt like she used fake charges against Anne, that actually caused the poor woman's death, and depicted them as just and vaild – while everybody who really looked into the matter knows that those charges against Anne were simply brought up to get rid of an innocent woman.

As a human being, one should respect the dead. And one should certainly never justify false claims against a woman who died because of those claims. One should have this much respect. Ms. Gregory does not have the slightest respect or love for those she writes about (or, to put it better, only for those historical people she somehow likes), and that makes her a crap author. 

I had to laugh after reading her after word in The Boleyn Inheritance….she states there, as far as I remember, that she wanted to portrait Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard in a different light, and not as the ugly one and the silly bimbo.

Sadly, in her novel, she did exactly this.