British writer, editor and historian (1924-2011)
Vincent Archibald Patrick Cronin
FRSL (24 May 1924 – 25 January 2011) was a British historical, cultural, and biographical writer, best known for his biographies of
Louis XIV ,
Louis XVI and
Marie Antoinette ,
Catherine the Great , and
Napoleon , as well as for his books on the
Renaissance .
Cronin was born in
Tredegar ,
Monmouthshire , to Scottish doctor and novelist,
A. J. Cronin , and May Gibson, but moved to London at the age of two. He was educated at
Ampleforth College ,
Harvard University , the
Sorbonne , and
Trinity College ,
Oxford , from which he graduated with honours in 1947, earning a degree in
Literae Humaniores . During the
Second World War , he served as a lieutenant in the
British Army .
[1]
Family
In 1949, he married Chantal de Rolland, and they had five children. The Cronins were long-time residents of London,
Marbella , and Dragey, in
Avranches ,
Normandy , where they lived at the
Manoir de Brion .
He died at his home in Marbella on 25 January 2011.
[1]
Awards
Cronin was a recipient of the
Richard Hillary Award, the
W.H. Heinemann Award (1955), and the
Rockefeller Foundation Award (1958). He also contributed to the
Revue des Deux Mondes , was the first General Editor of the Companion Guides series, and was on the Council of the
Royal Society of Literature .
His publications sold well, but were not always received well by scholars. Reviewer John T. Alexander called Catherine, Empress of All the Russias , a "facile popularization."
[2]
Works
The Golden Honeycomb: A Sicilian Quest (1954)
ISBN
0-246-11125-9
The Wise Man from the West:
Matteo Ricci and his Mission to China (1955)
ISBN
0-00-626749-1
The Last Migration (1957) (on the Falqani tribe of South Persia)
ISBN
0-85617-608-7
"
T. S. Eliot as a Translator." T. S. Eliot: A Symposium for His Seventieth Birthday. Ed. Neville Braybrooke, 129–137 (1958)
ISBN
0-900391-82-0
A Pearl to
India : The Life of
Roberto de Nobili (1959)
ISBN
0-246-63709-9
The Letter After Z (1960) (novel)
Translator, L'Amour Profane by Alfred Kern (1961) (novel)
A Calendar of Saints (1963)
The Companion Guide to Paris (1963 - first edition)
ISBN
0-00-613765-2
Louis XIV (1964)
ISBN
0-00-272072-8
Translator, The Christian Centuries: A New History of the Catholic Church, Volume One: The First Six Hundred Years by Jean Danielou and
Henri Marrou (1964)
ISBN
0-232-35604-1
Four Women in Pursuit of an Ideal (1965) (about
Caroline, duchess de Berry ,
Marie D'Agoult ,
Eve Hanska and
Marie Bashkirtseff ; also published as The Romantic Way , 1966)
Editor, The Sunday Times Travel and Holiday Guide (1966) (edited with Elizabeth Nicholas and Leonard Russell)
The Florentine Renaissance (1967)
ISBN
0-00-211262-0
Mary Portrayed (1968)
ISBN
0-87505-213-4
"The Classical Ideal in Florence." Essays by Divers Hands, Volume XXXV: 23–39 (1969)
Editor, The Companion Guide to the
West Highlands of Scotland by W.H. Murray (1969)
ISBN
0-13-154774-7
The Flowering of the Renaissance (1969)
ISBN
0-7126-9884-1
Editor, The Companion Guide to the North Island of New Zealand by Errol Brathwaite (1970)
ISBN
0-00-211139-X
Napoleon (1971),
ISBN
0-00-637521-9 (also published as Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography , 1972,
ISBN
0-688-00100-9 )
The Horizon Concise History of Italy (1972)
ISBN
0-07-014477-X (also published as A Concise History of Italy , 1973,
ISBN
0-304-29236-2 )
Louis and Antoinette (1974)
ISBN
0-8095-9216-9
Translator, Towards a New Democracy by
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (1977)
ISBN
0-00-216156-7
Catherine, Empress of All the Russias (1978)
ISBN
0-00-216119-2
Editor, Essays by Divers Hands, Volume XL (1979)
ISBN
0-85115-119-1
Editor, The Companion Guide to Florence by Eve Borsook (1979)
ISBN
0-00-216245-8
The View from Planet Earth: Man Looks at the
Cosmos (1981)
ISBN
0-688-01479-8
Paris on the Eve, 1900-1914 (1989)
ISBN
0-312-04876-9
The Renaissance (1992)
ISBN
0-00-215411-0
Paris: City of Light, 1919-1939 (1994)
ISBN
0-00-215191-X
Chile Rediscovered (2009)
ISBN
1-906768-02-1
Nero (2010)
ISBN
1-906768-14-5
References
External links
International National Academics Other