Synopses & Reviews
Few democratic institutions have been so rotten and corrupt as Britain's parliament in the early years of the nineteenth century. Its constituencies were largely medieval: there had been no adjustment to reflect the industrial revolution that had led to a boom in the cities of Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. Some constituencies barely existed in fact but still sent representatives to parliament. The most blatantly corrupt were perhaps Old Sarum, where two Members of Parliament (MPs) represented—quite literally—a lump of stone and a green field; Gatton, which was sold (several times over) for 180,000 pounds; and Dunwich, a shoreline community that had disappeared under the waves but somehow still retained its allocation of two MPs. The rottenness of the system might not have been an urgent matter but for the tide of popular revolutions that had swept France, Belgium and America. Suddenly, the mother of all democracies seemed on her death bed. Could she be saved? To make matters worse the country was bitterly divided—between and within its great political parties, the Tories and the Whigs. Charles Dickens and De Tocqueville were just two of the commentators who watched as Parliament, a dreadfully flawed and warped institution, attempted to reform itself. It all came to a head in 1832.
Internationally bestselling historian Antonia Fraser's new book brilliantly evokes one year of pre-Victorian political and social history that culminated in the passing of the Great Reform Bill of 1832, through the perspectives and experiences of a rich array of characters representing all sides of the struggle. The year was marked by violence—there were riots in Bristol, Manchester and Nottingham—and steeped in political tensions over the issues of Irish and "negro emancipation." From the Duke of Wellington's intractable declaration in November 1830 that "The beginning of reform is the beginning of revolution," to 7th June 1832, when William IV gave his extremely reluctant royal assent to the Bill, Antonia Fraser brings vividly to life the events that would forever change the way Britain was governed. Perilous Question is a story that will resonate with readers of the novels of Anthony Trollope and William Thackeray set in this period, and with anyone frustrated byor aghast atthe gridlocked congresses and dysfunctional, fractious politics of our own day.
Review
Kirkus Reviews“Engaging, elaborate and elegantly wrought.”
Review
The New YorkerFraser writes energetically about the political wrangling, finding both humor and humanity in the struggle.”
Total Politics (UK)
"Perilous Question is a cracking good read and should be on every parliamentarians summer reading list."
Kirkus Reviews
Engaging, elaborate and elegantly wrought.”
Evening Standard
A spirited attempt to bring the controversy and passion of the era to a new audience. Her prose is charming and fluent. She shows she has lost none of the touch that brought her fame as a popular historian.”
Telegraph
Antonia Frasers superb narrative of the passing of the Bill, which, as well as providing incisive pen portraits of all the major protagonists, is expressive and elegiac of an age when, despite everything, enlightened rationality informed political discourse
The 1820s and early 1830s have all too often been seen as a historical backwater between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the start of the Victorian era that began with the queens accession in 1837. With Frasers erudite and acute portrait of this age of reform, it wont be thought so anymore.”
Shelf Awareness for Readers
Political gerrymandering as historical thriller: Who would have guessed? In Perilous Question, Antonia Fraser makes precisely that leap--presenting the history behind Britain's Great Reform Act of 1832 in terms that are both historically thorough and deeply fascinating
.With her usual perception and clarity, Fraser
draws life from a seemingly dry topic, turning political history into real story.”
The Spectator
The final chapters of the book read like a thriller
The book should be required reading for todays millionaire ministers who seem sadly lily-livered by contrast with Grey and his Whigs. This is history as it should be written: lively, witty and, above all, a cracking good read. I found it almost impossible to put down.”
The Express (UK)
"Do children at school still learn about the Great Reform Bill of 1832?
. What I don't recall from school is how thoroughly entertaining it was. What a slice of human drama, how tense, how crucial and how very nearly it could have foundered, thereby propelling our nation into riot and revolution. For that we need impeccable historian Antonia Fraser, who invests such humanity in her huge cast of characters.”
Library Journal
In Frasers latest work on British history, she deviates from biography (Mary, Queen of Scots; The Six Wives of Henry VIII) to tackle the perilous question” of the Great Reform Bill of 1832, seeking to get at the personalities involved in this historical moment and the reactions of people at the time
Fraser moves the narrative along at a quick pace in order to give, as she says, a flavour of the times”
The book is recommended for Frasers fans and for British history enthusiasts.”
The Wharf (UK)
Antonia Fraser captures the febrile times with a kaleidoscope characters who leap off the page in their eminence, silliness and eloquence. This is a particular slice of history demanding a particular reader but it is edifying and breathless stuff and there are many lessons that our current ruling class could learn if they could tear themselves away from their expenses chits to make the effort.”
Camden Review (UK)
Antonia Frasers immaculate and dramatic history of the 1832 Reform Act is so important and essential reading, a brilliant eye-opener and heart-stopper as she reveals the passions of the radicals at the crossroads of British history for whom the advance of democracy was the only sane way forward
.All the awful pomposity is there to behold, all the chicanery, all the lust for power, money and love.”
Synopsis
Can a rotten political institution save itself? A story from English history has relevance for our own Congress
Synopsis
Antonia Frasers
Perilous Question is a dazzling re-creation of the tempestuous two-year period in Britains history leading up to the passing of the Great Reform Bill in 1832, a narrative which at times reads like a political thriller.
The era, beginning with the accession of William IV, is evoked in the novels of Trollope and Thackeray, and described by the young Charles Dickens as a cub reporter. It is lit with notable characters. The reforming heroes are the Whig aristocrats led by Lord Grey, members of the richest and most landed cabinet in history yet determined to bring liberty, which would whittle away their own power, to the country. The all-too-conservative opposition was headed by the Duke of Wellington, supported by the intransigent Queen Adelaide, with hereditary memories of the French Revolution. Finally, there were revolutionaries, like William Cobbett, the author of Rural Rides, the radical tailor Francis Place, and Thomas Attwood of Birmingham, the charismatic orator. The contest often grew violent. There were urban riots put down by soldiers and agricultural riots led by the mythical Captain Swing.
The underlying grievance was the fate of the many disfranchised people. They were ignored by a medieval system of electoral representation that gave, for example, no votes to those who lived in the new industrial cities of Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, and Birmingham, while allocating two parliamentary representatives to a village long since fallen into the sea and, most notoriously, Old Sarum, a green mound in a field. Lord John Russell, a Whig minister, said long afterwards that it was the only period when he genuinely felt popular revolution threatened the country. The Duke of Wellington declared intractably in November 1830 that The beginning of reform is the beginning of revolution.” So it seemed that disaster must fall on the British Parliament, or the monarchy, or both.
The question was: Could a rotten system reform itself in time? On June 7, 1832, the date of the extremely reluctant royal assent by William IV to the Great Reform Bill, it did. These events led to a total change in the way Britain was governed, and set the stage for its growth as the worlds most successful industrial power; admired, among other things, for its traditions of good governancea two-year revolution that Antonia Fraser brings to vivid dramatic life.
About the Author
Antonia Fraser has written several historical biographies which have been international bestsellers, since Mary, Queen of Scots published in 1969. These include Marie Antoinette, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and Cromwell. Other historical works include The Weaker Vessel: Womans Lot in Seventeenth Century England, and Faith and Treason: the Gunpowder Plot. Antonia Fraser was president of English Pen, the world-wide writers organization for free speech, and is now a vice-president. She has received many prizes, including the Wolfson History Award, the Norton Medlicott Historical Association Medal, the Franco-British Literary Prize, and the St. Louis Literary Award. She was made a D.B.E (Dame) in 2011 for services to literature. She was married to the Nobel Laureate, Harold Pinter, who died in 2008.