author
Samuel Rawson Gardiner
1829–1902
Best known for his sweeping histories of the English Civil War era, this Victorian scholar devoted his career to making the political and religious struggles of 17th-century England vivid and readable. His work helped shape how later generations understood the Stuarts, the Commonwealth, and Oliver Cromwell.
5 Audiobooks
A Student's History of England, v. 1: B.C. 55-A.D. 1509 From the Earliest Times to the Death of King Edward VII
by Samuel Rawson Gardiner
The Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648
by Samuel Rawson Gardiner
A Student's History of England, v. 2: 1509-1689 From the Earliest Times to the Death of King Edward VII
by Samuel Rawson Gardiner
Oliver Cromwell
by Samuel Rawson Gardiner
What Gunpowder Plot Was
by Samuel Rawson Gardiner
About the author
Born in Hampshire in 1829, Samuel Rawson Gardiner was an English historian who focused on the upheavals of 17th-century Britain. He studied at Winchester and Christ Church, Oxford, and became especially known for his deep research into the early Stuart monarchy, the Puritan movement, the English Civil War, and the Commonwealth.
Gardiner's reputation rests largely on his long, multi-volume histories of the period, including History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War, History of the Great Civil War, and History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. He was admired for the scale of his scholarship and for treating a turbulent, partisan age with unusual seriousness and care.
He also taught history at King's College London and was later elected to fellowships at All Souls and Merton College, Oxford. He died in 1902, but his books remain important for readers interested in the people, ideas, and conflicts that reshaped England in the 1600s.