The Life of Thomas More Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

The Life of Thomas More Book

Peter Ackroyd is the quintessential London writer. His wonderful biography of Dickens was lit not only by his love and understanding of the writer, but also of the city which Dickens made his own. Recent novels such as The House of Doctor Dee and Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem may have taken liberties with historical fact, but their London is a fascinating, pulsating place, more their true protagonist than their eponymous heroes. Thomas More is a prime candidate for the London treatment. Born in the city, with a life of official city duties at a time when London was highly distinct from Westminster and the court, he imbued his writings (especially Richard III and his print debate with Tyndale) with a real sense of London's uniqueness. Ackroyd's treatment is thus both apposite and, of course, highly readable. He possesses a real gift for making dry history come alive with telling detail and vivid swathes of local colour. But while the new angle might imply a new understanding of the man, ultimately, the picture is overly familiar. Ackroyd's More comes out looking very much like Robert Bolt's Man for All Seasons More--a hinge between dark medievalism and modern secular conscience. Only this time he has an inner London postcode. --Alan StewartRead More

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  • Amazon

    Peter Ackroyd's The Life of Thomas More is a reconstruction of the life and imagination of one of the most remarkable figures of history - and arguably the most brilliant lawyer the English-speaking world has ever known. Thomas More was a renowned statesman, the author of a political fantasy that gave a name to a literary genre and a worldview (Utopia), and, most famously, a Catholic martyr and saint, who was beheaded when he refused to follow his sovereign, King Henry VIII, in severing England's ties from the Catholic Church.Ackroyd shows dramatically how the clouds of Reformation that swarmed over the European continent unleashed the storm of the early modern period that swept away More's world and took his life. He clarifies the whirl of dynastic, religious, and mercantile politics that brought the autocratic Henry VIII and the devout More into their fateful conflict. And he narrates the unrelenting drama of More's final days - his detention, trial, and execution - with a novelist's mastery of suspense.

  • Foyles

    'Masterly' Observer'Brilliant' Independent on Sunday'Sparks of life' Daily MailThomas More is one of the great figures in English history. Pre-eminent as a courtier and as a humanist, a friend to Henry VIII and the author of Utopia, More's life and career epitomise the great transformation of England in the space of 35 years. In this illuminating book, Peter Ackroyd investigates the paradox of this 'man for all seasons': the man of the world who travelled across Europe to negotiate on behalf of his king, and the unworldly man who's careful silence on the matter of Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn would lead to his disgrace and execution.A magnificent achievement, The Life of Thomas More gives us a rich portrait of the man and the social and cultural world in which he lived.

  • Waterstones

    Pre-eminent as a courtier and a humanist, a friend to Henry VIII and the author of ''Utopia'', Thomas More is one of the great figures of England's history. This is a portrait of the first English layman to be beatified as a martyr, and of the social a

  • 0749386401
  • 9780749386405
  • Peter Ackroyd
  • 4 March 1999
  • Vintage
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 512
  • New edition
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