N. J. Higham

This tome sways more towards archaeology than history and, as a result, I found it hard to digest. In fact, I skipped many pages because the narrative didn’t hold my attention.

I saw no point in the first chapter about Roman Britain, so skipped this entirely. It’s not what I expected to encounter in a book about Anglo-Saxons, plus Roman Britain is the period of my country’s history that I’m least interested in.

The introduction hooked me 100 per cent, and I thought I was in store for a great read, but it turned out otherwise. Sections here and there caught my interest, and scanning the other reviews, I see I’m in the minority with my opinion.… (more)

Rather than a traditional biography, which is not possible due to the relative paucity of evidence from the first quarter of the tenth century, this book is instead a collection of papers by different academics presented at a conference in 1999, which was convened for the 1100th anniversary of Edward the Elder's accession to the throne of the emerging Anglo-Saxon kingdom of "Wessex plus", the forerunner of the English kingdom more fully established in the reign of his son Athelstan. It is thus rather dry in places for the amateur reader and contains a lot of repetition of those basic facts that are known. So a bit frustrating, but this is as good as it is ever going to get for this ruler. He is unfortunately sandwiched between his legendary father and his son who was the first king to rule over an area approximating to modern day England, but nevertheless deserves recognition as the bridge between the kingdom of Wessex and the rest of the country, especially its Mercian heartland. 3.5/5… (more)