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Thursday, June 03, 2010

Question from Katie - Steven Gunn's bio of Charles Brandon

Hi everybody,

I am deserately looking for the book "Charles Brandon. Duke of Suffolk" by Steven Gunn.
Unfortunately it is out of print.
Has anybody an idea where I can get the book from?

Thanks :)

6 comments:

  1. Good question. I bought a copy about three years ago when it was still reasonably priced. I had the opportunity to meet Steven Gunn last summer and mentioned to him that the cost of his book was then astronomical -- up near $1000 if you could find it at all. He was surprised and said he would check into that. But, as you said, it seems to be out of print.

    Do you really need to buy a copy of it, Katie? Can you borrow it from a library near you or get it on interlibrary loan?

    You are aware, aren't you, that it isn't a biography? It has some biographical elements in it, but it's basically Gunn's dissertation on how political alliances were built up in Tudor England.

    If you really need your own copy, I would suggest keeping an eye out on amazon.com and ebay to see if any appear. Also, libraries frequently sell off stock they don't need any more. I've gotten some good bargains that way. bookfinders.com and abebooks.com are good at getting out of print material.

    If you only need the answer to one or two items from the book, ask Lara to send you my email addy and I'll be glad to help you as much as I can since Charles Brandon is a particular interest of mine.

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  2. The best I can suggest is using worldcat.org to search for it in a library near you, then use inter library loan services, hopefully, to borrow a copy.

    I'm in New Mexico and Worldcat is showing a copy in Colorado.

    I looked on ABEBooks and nothing came up although that's a good site for used books. You could also check Powells.com although that came up blank for me right now as well.....

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  3. Where are you based, Katie? If you're in England, ask your local library to order it via inter library loan from the British Library. It will only cost you a couple of pounds.

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  4. There's another bio of Charles Brandon, "The Sisters of Lady Jane Grey and Their Wicked Grandfather; Being the True Stories of the Strange Lives of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk," by Richard Davey. It's listed on Alibris as "a soft cover edition of the original rare book." Anyone know anything about this one?

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  5. Faith, I ran across that some time back. I'm sorry I can't remember where, and I had a hard drive crash late last year, so I can't look it up. I'm pretty certain it's online though. You can just look at the title and tell it isn't a scholarly work and isn't in the least likely to be accurate. I don't recall very much of it, just that I was profoundly underwhelmed with it.

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