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Margaret George

Goodreads Author

Born

in Nashville, Tennessee, The United States

Website

http://www.margaretgeorge.com/

Genre

Historical Fiction

Member Since

June 2016

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Margaret George is a rolling stone who has lived in many places, beginning her traveling at the age of four when her father joined the U.S. diplomatic service and was posted to a consulate in Taiwan. The family traveled on a freighter named after Ulysses' son Telemachus that took thirty days to reach Taiwan, where they spent two years. Following that they lived in Tel Aviv (right after the 1948 war, when it was relatively quiet), Bonn and Berlin (during the spy-and-Cold-War days) before returning--at the height of Elvis-mania--to Washington DC, where Margaret went to high school. Margaret's first piece of published writing, at the age of thirteen, was a letter to TIME Magazine defending Elvis against his detractors. (Margaret has since been Margaret George is a rolling stone who has lived in many places, beginning her traveling at the age of four when her father joined the U.S. diplomatic service and was posted to a consulate in Taiwan. The family traveled on a freighter named after Ulysses' son Telemachus that took thirty days to reach Taiwan, where they spent two years. Following that they lived in Tel Aviv (right after the 1948 war, when it was relatively quiet), Bonn and Berlin (during the spy-and-Cold-War days) before returning--at the height of Elvis-mania--to Washington DC, where Margaret went to high school. Margaret's first piece of published writing, at the age of thirteen, was a letter to TIME Magazine defending Elvis against his detractors. (Margaret has since been to Graceland.)

But it was earlier in Israel that Margaret, an avid reader, began writing novels to amuse herself when she ran out of books to read. Interestingly, the subject of these was not what lay around her in the Middle East, but the American west, which she had never set foot in. (Now that she lives in the American Midwest she writes about the Middle East!) Clearly writing in her case followed Emily Dickinson's observation "There is no frigate like a book" and she used it to go to faraway places. Now she has added another dimension to that travel by specializing in visiting times remote from herself.

Neither of these horse sagas got published, but the ten-year-old author received an encouraging note from an editor at Grosset & Dunlap, telling her she had a budding talent but should work on her spelling.

It was also in Israel that Margaret started keeping land tortoises as pets, an interest which she still follows today. She had a great affinity for animals and nature and that led her to a double major at Tufts University in English literature and biology. Following that she received an MA in ecology from Stanford University--one of the earliest departments to offer such a concentration. Today she is active in environmental and animal conservation groups.

Combining her interests led her to a position as a science writer at the National Cancer Institute (National Institutes of Health) in Bethesda, Maryland for four years.

Her marriage at the end of that time meant moving, first to St. Louis, then to Uppsala, Sweden, and then to Madison, Wisconsin, where she and her husband Paul have lived for more than twenty years now. They have one grown daughter who lives in California and is in graduate school.

Through all this Margaret continued to write, albeit slowly and always on only one project at a time. She wrote what she refers to as her 'Ayn Rand/adventure novel' in college and her 'Sex and the City' novel in Washington DC. It was in St. Louis that she suddenly got the idea of writing a 'psycho-biography' of Henry VIII. She had never seen such a thing done but became convinced the king was a victim of bad PR and she should rescue his good name. Her background in science meant that only after thoroughly researching the literature and scholarship on Henry VIII would she embark on the novel itself. She sought the guidance of a Tudor historian at Washington University for a reading list, and proceeded from there.

It was actually fourteen years between her initial idea and the publication of The Autobiography of Henry VIII. The book made an impression for several reasons: first, because no one had ever written a novel sympathetic to the king before; second, because it covered his entire life from before birth until after his death, making it almost a thousand pages long, and third, because it was so fact-filled.

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Average rating: 4.11 · 97,739 ratings · 6,371 reviews · 60 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers 4.26 avg rating — 28,413 ratings — published 1986 — 56 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Memoirs of Cleopatra 4.19 avg rating — 21,002 ratings — published 1997 — 55 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles 4.08 avg rating — 14,527 ratings — published 1992 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Helen of Troy 3.95 avg rating — 11,734 ratings — published 2006 — 50 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Mary, Called Magdalene 3.89 avg rating — 8,977 ratings — published 2002 — 52 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Elizabeth I 3.97 avg rating — 6,744 ratings — published 2011 — 30 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Confessions of Young Nero (Nero, #1) 3.90 avg rating — 3,661 ratings — published 2017	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Splendor Before the Dark (Nero, #2) 3.97 avg rating — 1,204 ratings — published 2018 — 19 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Filha de Ísis (As Memórias de Cleópatra, Parte 1/3) by Margaret George (Goodreads Author), Sérgio Gonçalves (Translator) 4.16 avg rating — 638 ratings — published 1997 — 35 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	O Signo de Afrodite (Memoirs of Cleopatra #2) by Margaret George (Goodreads Author), Sérgio Gonçalves (Translator) 4.27 avg rating — 403 ratings — published 1998 — 21 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Series by Margaret George

Nero (2 books)
by

Margaret George (Goodreads Author)

3.92 avg rating — 4,865 ratings

Memoirs of Cleopatra (3 books)
by

Margaret George (Goodreads Author),

Sérgio Gonçalves (Translator)

4.23 avg rating — 1,321 ratings

Helen of Troy (2 books)
by

Margaret George (Goodreads Author),

Isabel Penteado (Tradução)

3.98 avg rating — 185 ratings

Mary, Called Magdalene (2 books)
by

Margaret George (Goodreads Author)

3.76 avg rating — 87 ratings

Autobiografia de Henrique VIII (5 books)
by

Margaret George (Goodreads Author)

4.89 avg rating — 9 ratings

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Quotes by Margaret George (?)

“So I learned two things that night, and the next day, from him: the perfection of a moment, and the fleeting nature of it.”
― Margaret George, The Memoirs of Cleopatra

tags: cleopatra, epiphany, fiction, journey, life, loss, love, relationships

358 likes

“It is almost impossible to describe happiness, because at the time it feels entirely natural, as if all the rest of your life has been the aberration; only in retrospect does it swim into focus as the rare and precious thing it is. When it is present, it seems to be eternal, abiding forever, and there is no need to examine it or clutch it. Later, when it has evaporated, you stare in dismay at your empty palm, where only a little of the perfume lingers to prove that once it was there, and now is flown.”
― Margaret George, The Memoirs of Cleopatra

82 likes

“The cure for a broken heart is simple, my lady. A hot bath and a good night's sleep.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

tags: broken-heart, comforting-thought

63 likes

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Polls

Which book would you like to read for our February 15 - March 15 European Royalty group read?

For the King's Favor by Elizabeth Chadwick

14 votes, 23.7%

The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers by Margaret George

10 votes, 16.9%

A Rose for the Crown by Anne Easter Smith

10 votes, 16.9%

Legacy by Susan Kay

8 votes, 13.6%

The Last Queen by C.W. Gortner

5 votes, 8.5%

His Last Duchess by Gabrielle Kimm

4 votes, 6.8%

The Last Wife of Henry VIII by Carolly Erickson

4 votes, 6.8%

Queen Hereafter: A Novel of Margaret of Scotland by Susan Fraser King

4 votes, 6.8%

59 total votes

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Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
European Royalty: Nov 15 - Dec 15: Nominating	16	51	Oct 31, 2008 07:09PM
European Royalty: Nov. 15 - Dec. 15: Voting - Updated	8	98	Nov 05, 2008 06:48AM
The Next Best Boo...: Historical Fiction Advice	111	1584	Jun 09, 2009 05:22PM
European Royalty: Sept 1 - Oct 1: Mary, Called Magdalene	1	21	Jul 23, 2009 01:52PM
100+ Books in 2024: Susan's 100+ Reading Challenge	93	544	Dec 30, 2009 02:32PM
A History of Royals: New Member	47	70	Jan 15, 2010 09:57AM

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