cover image Colonel Parke of Virginia: The Greatest Hector in the Town: A Biography

Colonel Parke of Virginia: The Greatest Hector in the Town: A Biography

Helen Hill Miller. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $19.95 (232pp) ISBN 978-0-912697-87-1

As depicted in this lively biography by Miller ( Captains of Devon ), politically ambitious, licentious Daniel Parke (1664/5-1710) sparked much controversy in his time, both in England as a Restoration courtier and aide-de-camp to the Duke of Marlborough and in colonial America, where he tried but failed to become governor of Virginia. Combining a novelist's talent with scholarship, the author recounts in entertaining detail Parke's checkered public and private careers, which culminated in the governorship of the Leeward Islands--where after four disastrous years he was murdered by his subjects. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Jan.)