In Miss Penman's 936-page novel, we are introduced to Richard much earlier in his life than we are in Shakespeare's play this, of course, is usually an effective way of gaining reader sympathy for a character, no matter how awful he turns out to be subsequently. He's an altogether nice man, a romantic hero as suitable to our late 20thcentury standards, at least in Miss Penman's interpretation, as he was to those of medieval England. In ''The Sunne in Splendour,'' Richard is moral, kind, honest and anything but deformed his hunched back, withered arm and limp have become merely an injured shoulder, and his inward qualities have improved accordingly. THOSE who know Richard III from Shakespeare will find that Sharon Kay Penman - a lawyer, historian and now a novelist - presents a contrasting view of the English monarch. New York and San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. $19.95.FLAMBARD'S CONFESSION By Marilyn Durham. THE SUNNE IN SPLENDOUR By Sharon Kay Penman.
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