SOURCE: "My Fair Lady," in Harper's, No. 3371, November, 1992, pp. 58, 60.

In the following interview, Samson and Fraser discuss The Wives of Henry VIII.

When her friend and erstwhile New Yorker editor Bob Gottlieb suggested she write her next book on the wives of Henry VIII, Lady Antonia Fraser remembers thinking that it was the book she was born to write. "I felt like rushing around the streets of New York, accosting people and telling them what I was going to do," she says.

The idea was a natural for a writer who had long since earned her place as a major historian. At 27, Lady Antonia wrote the definitive biography Mary, Queen of Scots, which was a best seller in eight languages. It was followed by equally acclaimed volumes on Oliver Cromwell and Charles II. Then she moved on to The Weaker Vessel, about women's sufferings in the 17th century...