Lawrence Schoonover (1906–1980)
Author of The Spider King
About the Author
Image credit: Fountain City Publishing
Works by Lawrence Schoonover
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Schoonover, Lawrence
- Birthdate
- 1906
- Date of death
- 1980
- Gender
- male
- Education
- University of Wisconsin
- Occupations
- historical novelist
- Short biography
- Lawrence Schoonover was a successful author of highly popular historical and biographical novels. He left a legacy of exceptionally readable and thoroughly researched works of great interest to lovers of history, adventure, and romance. Schoonover was born in Iowa and graduated from the University of Wisconsin before moving to New York City to work for a large advertising agency. In the spring of 1948, he began research for what was later published as The Burnished Blade, the novel which immediately won him critical accolades and was chosen as a Literary Guild selection. Many editions and millions of copies of his works have been printed and translated into eight languages, including Spanish and Norwegian. -- Amazon.com
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Anamosa, Iowa, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- Iowa, USA
Members
Reviews
Infanta Isabella of Castile and Leon is that priceless jewel in a failing country, a skilled leader, but when she is young, no one has a chance to find out. She is exiled from court by her impotent half-brother the king, nearly married off to a much older, unappealing man, and even thrust in a dungeon to prevent her from gaining visibility. Only when Isabella is officially named heir to the throne does she begin to take power for herself, starting with her choice of husband. Ferdinand, heir show more to Aragon and king of Sicily, is not only handsome but her path towards the unification of Spain. Together, Ferdinand and Isabella pursue this course, bringing Spain to the forefront of power in Europe in one short reign.
I’m going to start off by saying that since this is a reissue of an older historical novel, the history is outdated. Knowing that, I managed to not get annoyed when an envoy from Richard, duke of Gloucester (with a withered arm, no less!) appeared offering his hand in marriage to Isabella, suggesting that he would be king someday. At the time Richard would also have been a teenager and hardly convinced of his place in the English royal succession, much less in a position to negotiate his own marriages. Sorry, I nitpick. To contrast with a positive example, I was just thrilled when Schoonover mentioned that fifteenth-century people knew the world was round.
The novel also reflects certain 1950s values which I found alternately charming and strange in a historical novel. Isabella is clearly a mighty monarch. She is clever and at times ruthless. She also, however, has a strange predilection for weeping and acknowledging that her husband needs to do manly things away from her occasionally, like lead armies, and she arranges little tasks behind his back so that he’ll feel useful, like a man should. I felt almost as though Isabella had to be a housewife AND a queen to satisfy everyone’s ideal. Ferdinand is constantly upset when she does something without him or has power that he does not share. Maybe I’m reading too much into that - after all, how many kings really want their queens to be more powerful than them? - but it stuck out a little to me.
All that said, this novel had a wonderful sort of charm that I wouldn’t discount at all. It feels old-fashioned, but in a lovely sit in an armchair and get absorbed in an enthralling story feel. Everything has a slightly magical, ethereal edge to it. This is a land long ago past and there is a tinge of nostalgia throughout the entire book that is eminently compelling. Despite Isabella’s fluctuation between dominant and submissive, I really liked her and particularly her friend, Beatriz. I liked this book. It reminded me of the books I used to read when I was a kid, before I particularly cared who was who in the historical world. It’s like a visit to my grandma’s house. Everything there is familiar and comfortable but has a bit of an aged feel to it. There is no computer, no DVD player, but a set of wedding china and pictures from when my parents were younger than I am now. That is how this book feels.
In that sense, I would probably recommend it! It was clearly fairly popular in its day, and while it does feel aged, it still has a lovely story to tell. Maybe all the dots don’t add up anymore, but they still make a picture worth looking at.
http://chikune.com/blog/?p=800 show less
I’m going to start off by saying that since this is a reissue of an older historical novel, the history is outdated. Knowing that, I managed to not get annoyed when an envoy from Richard, duke of Gloucester (with a withered arm, no less!) appeared offering his hand in marriage to Isabella, suggesting that he would be king someday. At the time Richard would also have been a teenager and hardly convinced of his place in the English royal succession, much less in a position to negotiate his own marriages. Sorry, I nitpick. To contrast with a positive example, I was just thrilled when Schoonover mentioned that fifteenth-century people knew the world was round.
The novel also reflects certain 1950s values which I found alternately charming and strange in a historical novel. Isabella is clearly a mighty monarch. She is clever and at times ruthless. She also, however, has a strange predilection for weeping and acknowledging that her husband needs to do manly things away from her occasionally, like lead armies, and she arranges little tasks behind his back so that he’ll feel useful, like a man should. I felt almost as though Isabella had to be a housewife AND a queen to satisfy everyone’s ideal. Ferdinand is constantly upset when she does something without him or has power that he does not share. Maybe I’m reading too much into that - after all, how many kings really want their queens to be more powerful than them? - but it stuck out a little to me.
All that said, this novel had a wonderful sort of charm that I wouldn’t discount at all. It feels old-fashioned, but in a lovely sit in an armchair and get absorbed in an enthralling story feel. Everything has a slightly magical, ethereal edge to it. This is a land long ago past and there is a tinge of nostalgia throughout the entire book that is eminently compelling. Despite Isabella’s fluctuation between dominant and submissive, I really liked her and particularly her friend, Beatriz. I liked this book. It reminded me of the books I used to read when I was a kid, before I particularly cared who was who in the historical world. It’s like a visit to my grandma’s house. Everything there is familiar and comfortable but has a bit of an aged feel to it. There is no computer, no DVD player, but a set of wedding china and pictures from when my parents were younger than I am now. That is how this book feels.
In that sense, I would probably recommend it! It was clearly fairly popular in its day, and while it does feel aged, it still has a lovely story to tell. Maybe all the dots don’t add up anymore, but they still make a picture worth looking at.
http://chikune.com/blog/?p=800 show less
In The Gentle Infidel, Lawrence Schoonover takes the reader to 15th-century Turkey to witness the calamitous fall of Constantinople. As a young boy of Christian family, Michael is drafted into the sultan's elite military force, the janissaries. There he is converted to Islam and taught to regard his Christian childhood as a thing of shame. Michael is naturally talented and ambitious, quickly rising to commander though he is yet to win his name in a battle. But when he falls in love with the show more fourth wife of a powerful pasha, his life begins to change rapidly as he experiences passion, betrayal, revenge, and a final profound decision of which faith he really believes.
The women in his life, Aeshia and Angelica, of course represent Islam and Christianity respectively. Schoonover writes as impartially as he can, showing the faults of Christians as well as of Moslems, but I was never in much doubt as to which one Michael was going to choose. His conversion to Christianity, amidst the burning carnage of a Constantinople that he and his fellow janissaries helped take, is actually fairly believable.
I love historical fiction, but found it hard to relax into this novel at first. Schoonover writes well for the most part, but there is so much explaining to do about the cultures and customs of the time that he often pauses the narrative to give a paragraph of background information. The effect is rather clumsy. As the story progresses, those info-dumps lessen (or at least, I noticed them less). They are, in themselves, quite interesting glimpses in the mores of the time. I found the descriptions of everyday Christianity and Islam fascinating: the court etiquette, the divorce laws, the bloodthirsty ruthlessness of their religious and territorial wars, and of course the way that people of all levels creatively circumvented the more rigid requirements of their faith.
I'm not sure why, but somehow this novel reminded me of The Trumpeter of Krakow, the first Newbery Award winner also set in the Middle Ages. Maybe it was the diamonds or the sense of enemies all around, or just the general setting (though that's Poland). I should revisit that novel. Maybe that's a mark of good fiction, that it whets the appetite for more of the same.
I can't say this will ever become a big favorite of mine, but I enjoyed it enough to look for more of Schoonover's work and to recommend this as a competent fictional treatment of the fall of Constantinople. show less
The women in his life, Aeshia and Angelica, of course represent Islam and Christianity respectively. Schoonover writes as impartially as he can, showing the faults of Christians as well as of Moslems, but I was never in much doubt as to which one Michael was going to choose. His conversion to Christianity, amidst the burning carnage of a Constantinople that he and his fellow janissaries helped take, is actually fairly believable.
I love historical fiction, but found it hard to relax into this novel at first. Schoonover writes well for the most part, but there is so much explaining to do about the cultures and customs of the time that he often pauses the narrative to give a paragraph of background information. The effect is rather clumsy. As the story progresses, those info-dumps lessen (or at least, I noticed them less). They are, in themselves, quite interesting glimpses in the mores of the time. I found the descriptions of everyday Christianity and Islam fascinating: the court etiquette, the divorce laws, the bloodthirsty ruthlessness of their religious and territorial wars, and of course the way that people of all levels creatively circumvented the more rigid requirements of their faith.
I'm not sure why, but somehow this novel reminded me of The Trumpeter of Krakow, the first Newbery Award winner also set in the Middle Ages. Maybe it was the diamonds or the sense of enemies all around, or just the general setting (though that's Poland). I should revisit that novel. Maybe that's a mark of good fiction, that it whets the appetite for more of the same.
I can't say this will ever become a big favorite of mine, but I enjoyed it enough to look for more of Schoonover's work and to recommend this as a competent fictional treatment of the fall of Constantinople. show less
Of this whole genre of medieval adventure stories, this is one of my favorites.
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- Works
- 18
- Members
- 467
- Popularity
- #52,671
- Rating
- 3.9
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- ISBNs
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