Descended from a long line of doughty warriors and statesmen, William Prince of Orange was born in the Hague during November1650, son of a Dutch father and a Scottish Stuart Princess, eldest daughter of Charles I. Banned at first from succeeding to his hereditary offices by the Act of Seclusion, William's boyhood was rather lonely. His early life was bounded by the Anglo-Dutch naval wars during Cromwell's Protectorate and after the Restoration of Charles II. Acquiring his first military experience during the invasion of Holland by King Louis XIV in 1672, he revealed qualities of heroism and patriotism, refusing to submit to the might of France. He was, above all, a European, having an intimate knowledge of her various peoples. Bryan Bevan, in his new biography of the Prince, discusses William's qualities as a statesman, revealing his many virtues but not silent as to his marked faults. What were his real motives when invading his father-in-law James' kingdom? William III, reigning jointly with Mary II, had an unusual marriage but the deep attachment he felt for her surprised many. However, for the most part, in his private and public life, men friends mattered more to him than female society. William's bravery in battle has never been questioned. but he was never a great soldier. His greatness shone rather in his patience and skill in forging a grand alliance of nations against Louis XIV's ambition to dominate Europe. He was before his time in belief in the balance of power. 207p, 8 b/w pls (Rubicon Press 1997)

This major study provides the first comprehensive assessment of an important European institution, the Stadholderate of the Dutch Republic. Professor Rowen looks at the career of each Prince of Orange in turn, from William I ('The Silent'), to the last and saddest, William V, examining their roles as Stadholder and interweaving their personal lives and characters with the development of the institution. Without engaging in psycho-history, Rowen treats the individual personality of each Stadholder as a significant factor, and shows how the Stadholderate contributed to a distinctive political and constitutional coloration that rendered the United Provinces unique in Europe. The work assesses the contribution of the Stadholderate to the rise and subsequent fall of the Dutch Republic as one of the great powers of early modern Europe, and analyses each prince within his contemporary context, avoiding the highly present-minded approach of many of the Republic's subsequent historians. The Princes of Orange is thus neither a work of hagiography, glorifying the Dutch royal house, nor a piece of destructive iconoclasm, but an authoritative account of a most unusual political, dynastic and diplomatic institution.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The brilliant coming-of-age-and-into-superstardom story of one of the greatest artists of all time, in his own words—featuring never-before-seen photos, original scrapbooks and lyric sheets, and the exquisite memoir he began writing before his tragic death NAMED ONE OF THE BEST MUSIC BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND THE GUARDIAN • NOMINATED FOR THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD Prince was a musical genius, one of the most beloved, accomplished, and acclaimed musicians of our time. He was a startlingly original visionary with an imagination deep enough to whip up whole worlds, from the sexy, gritty funk paradise of “Uptown” to the mythical landscape of Purple Rain to the psychedelia of “Paisley Park.” But his most ambitious creative act was turning Prince Rogers Nelson, born in Minnesota, into Prince, one of the greatest pop stars of any era. The Beautiful Ones is the story of how Prince became Prince—a first-person account of a kid absorbing the world around him and then creating a persona, an artistic vision, and a life, before the hits and fame that would come to define him. The book is told in four parts. The first is the memoir Prince was writing before his tragic death, pages that bring us into his childhood world through his own lyrical prose. The second part takes us through Prince’s early years as a musician, before his first album was released, via an evocative scrapbook of writing and photos. The third section shows us Prince’s evolution through candid images that go up to the cusp of his greatest achievement, which we see in the book’s fourth section: his original handwritten treatment for Purple Rain—the final stage in Prince’s self-creation, where he retells the autobiography of the first three parts as a heroic journey. The book is framed by editor Dan Piepenbring’s riveting and moving introduction about his profound collaboration with Prince in his final months—a time when Prince was thinking deeply about how to reveal more of himself and his ideas to the world, while retaining the mystery and mystique he’d so carefully cultivated—and annotations that provide context to the book’s images. This work is not just a tribute to an icon, but an original and energizing literary work in its own right, full of Prince’s ideas and vision, his voice and image—his undying gift to the world.

BOOK ONE IN THE BROKEN EMPIRE TRILOGY “Prince of Thorns deserves attention as the work of an iconoclast who seems determined to turn that familiar thing, Medievalesque Fantasy Trilogy, entirely on its head.”—Locus When he was nine, he watched as his mother and brother were killed before him. By the time he was thirteen, he was the leader of a band of bloodthirsty thugs. By fifteen, he intends to be king... It’s time for Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath to return to the castle he turned his back on, to take what’s rightfully his. Since the day he hung pinned on the thorns of a briar patch and watched Count Renar’s men slaughter his mother and young brother, Jorg has been driven to vent his rage. Life and death are no more than a game to him—and he has nothing left to lose. But treachery awaits him in his father’s castle. Treachery and dark magic. No matter how fierce his will, can one young man conquer enemies with power beyond his imagining?

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When the fussy young prince turns his nose up at his royal breakfast, the king and queen decide to hit the road. The whole royal family embarks on a madcap global adventure to Mexico, India and beyond in search of something the prince will eat.

"Prince and Heretic" is a historical novel about the Dutch House of Orange and begins with its prince, William. William the Silent, also known as William the Taciturn, or, more commonly, William of Orange, was the main leader of the Dutch Revolt against the Spanish Habsburgs that set off the Eighty Years' War and resulted in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1581. The novel is set in the time of the Holy Inquisition when tensions between the Catholic and Protestant churches dominated. It is full of court intrigues, mysteries, political tensions, and unexpected turns.