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Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England
Thomas Penn
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Description for Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England
Paperback. Num Pages: 480 pages. BIC Classification: 1DBKE; BGH; BGR; HBJD1; HBLH. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 198 x 129. .
Winner of THE HW FISHER BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE
SPECTATOR, SUNDAY TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, TLS, FINANCIAL TIMES, GUARDIAN, DAILY MAIL and SUNDAY TELEGRAPH BOOKS OF THE YEAR
'Imagine Wolf Hall rewritten by John le Carré ... gripping ... a rare achievement' Tom Holland, Guardian
It is 1501. Henry VII has won the throne of England through luck, guile and ruthlessness. But for many he remains a usurper. Now, his elder son is to marry, in a wedding upon which the fate of the country, and the entire Tudor dynasty, will hang ...
'A ... Read moremasterpiece. Rich, resonant and utterly compelling' Helen Castor, Sunday Telegraph, Books of the Year
'Gripping ... brilliant ... The enigmatic Henry is brought thrillingly to life as one of the most unlikely but tenacious kings ever to wear the English crown' Dan Jones, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year
'Thrilling and sinister' Simon Sebag Montefiore, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year
'Enthralling ... Penn captures the weirdness, the ferocity, and a glint of unexpected tenderness' The Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year
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Product Details
Publisher
Penguin Books Ltd
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 2 to 4 working days
About Thomas Penn
Thomas Penn's bestselling Winter King was a Book of the Year in the Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Sunday Times and BBC History, and was awarded the H. W. Fisher Best First Biography Prize. He has a PhD in late fifteenth and early sixteenth century history from Clare College, Cambridge, and writes for, among others, the Guardian and the London Review of ... Read moreBooks. Show Less
Reviews for Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England
A brilliant debut ... this impressive book will certainly become the definitive study of our strangest, most mysterious, king
Desmond Seward
BBC History Magazine
Stunning ... effortlessly vivid prose ... a revelation. [Penn's] focus is on the last, fear-filled decade of [Henry VII's] reign, but his sinuously coiling chapters seamlessly unfold the past as well as the ... Read morepresent of his protagonists ... [He] has pulled off a rare feat: a brilliant and haunting evocation of the Tudor world, with irresistible echoes of the age of fear in which we now live
Helen Castor
Telegraph
[A] brilliant mash-up of gothic horror and political biography ... a tour de force: both scholarly and a pleasure to read, covering the breadth of the European political scene, while providing the details that allow us to feel intimately the terror at home
Spectator
Remarkable ... Penn brilliantly recreates the sterile atmosphere suffocating Henry's England. His eye for time, circumstance and the telling anecdote is keen. Winter King offers us the fullest, deepest, most compelling insight into the warped psychology of the Tudor dynasty's founder to have appeared since Bacon wrote
Financial Times
[Thomas Penn] is a superb teller of a tale, a reveller in dodgy deeds, a keen observer of the febrile, dissimulating characters of court and embassy, and a splendid limner of the great jousts and entertainments of the age ... with a sharp eye for detail and adroit use of a gifted historical imagination, ... he lets us hear the creak of oars and the scratch of pens, as well as the tubercular king fighting for every breath ... Vigorous and thoroughly enjoyable
Economist
I feel like I've been waiting to read this book a long time ... a fluent and compelling account ... The level of detail is fascinating and beautifully judged ... I think that, for the first time, a writer has made me feel what contemporaries felt as Henry VII's reign drew to an end; the relief, the hope, the sudden buoyancy
Hilary Mantel, author of 'Wolf Hall' Succeeds brilliantly ... [a] finely drawn portrait ... Penn's deft turn of phrase superbly re-creates the drama and personalities of the court
Tracy Borman
Sunday Times
An exceptionally stylish literary debut. Henry VII may be the most unlikely person ever to have occupied the throne of England, and his biographers have rarely conveyed just what a weird man he was. Thomas Penn does this triumphantly, and in the process manages to place his subject in a vividly realised landscape. His book should be the first port of call for anyone trying to understand England's most flagrant usurper since William the Conqueror
Diarmaid MacCulloch A definitive and accessible account of the reign of Henry VII that will alter our view not just of Henry, but of the country he dominated and corrupted, and of the dynasty he founded ... [Penn's] point is to show that this is not the "merrie England" of the Tudor myth, but a country forced under the rule of a new king, spied on and policed for any sign of disloyalty, and tyrannised by the use of ancient half-forgotten fines and taxes
Philippa Gregory
Observer
[Penn] achieves the remarkable feat of making the reign of Henry VII seem more interesting than that of his son. Winter King is well titled: the fingers of the first Tudor king, in Penn's account of his final years, are icy to the touch, and probe into every nook and cranny of the kingdom ... gripping and unexpected
Tom Holland
Guardian
Penn's scholarly and engrossing life of Henry VII ... gives a complex and exact sense of how power worked in early modern England
Sam Leith
Spectator (Books of the Year 2012)
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