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Average Customer Rating:

an engrossing read

Customer Rating:

Having hugely enjoyed the previous, excellent study of Mary Queen of Scots by this author, I was keen to read his next book. John Guy makes the complicated and precarious world of Thomas More and his family understandable and exciting to non specialist readers such as myself. He includes the sort of precise, telling detail and explanation of the lives they led and the beliefs they held, which makes they themselves and their frightening situation become very real. The importance of Margaret's position in the story, brought into focus after so long, was satisfying, and gave a new perspective to events which we might have the impression that we already understand. We do not. Not until this book has been read!

A Masterpiece

Customer Rating:

I just got this book and loved it. It's an absolutely stunning read, totally engrossing, and it's actually a better book than Guy's "My Heart is My Own", his biography of Mary Queen of Scots that won the Whitbread Biography Award. For the first time in 500 years we see Thomas More as he really was, and how far he relied on his brilliant daughter, Margaret, married to the shallow timeserver, William Roper, who fooled everyone by stealing the story 20 years after More's execution and making himself a central character in it, when really he just took the oath to Henry and ran for cover. The research Guy must have done to write this book is amazing. There are things you'll never find out in the biographies by Chambers, Marius and Ackroyd. As well as hearing about the black sheep in the More family, we see how Margaret Roper's uncle, John Rastell, wrote a rival version of Utopia and went on a voyage of discovery to America, before falling out in Parliament with Thomas More over More's persecution of the Protestants. More was a genuine hero of conscience, the only honest man among the thugs in Henry VIII's service, but he certainly wasn't a liberal. In helping her father defeat a bullying tyrant, Margaret, who was clever enough to correct the mistakes in the writings of Erasmus of Rotterdam, fought for him, even outwitting Thomas Cromwell, Henry's chief minister. She put her own immortal soul at risk in order to get inside the Tower to offer her father the comfort and support he needed, but by propping him up emotionally, she ensured that he conquered his fears of Henry's retribution. She was the woman behind the martyr, and the only thing that's more amazing than her story is how long it's taken for us to find out the truth.

A fascinating read

Customer Rating:

I read this book after I saw Lisa Jardine's rave review in the Sunday Times and I thoroughly agree with her enthusiastic assessment. Jardine really knows what she is talking about! The book is gripping right from the Prologue in which there is a flash forward and Margaret retrieves Thomas' head from display on London Bridge. The history of `my dearest Meg' and Thomas are then skilfully interwoven starting off with the environment into which Margaret was born and moving through her exceptional education and then focussing on Thomas's progression and eventual fatal conflict with Henry's dictatorial approach to the split with Rome and his instalment as Head of the Church of England. With the possible exception in his delight at occasional bawdy entertainment, Thomas always appears a very personable yet principled person who would be much more interesting to meet than the cold fish Erasmus. I read Utopia a long time ago and it was very considerate of the author to give a short refresher and to relate the work to the prevailing circumstances. This is a very readable book with nice short chapters and it is handsomely produced with many photographs, and the essential family trees. The author wears his considerable scholarship very lightly and there are 48 pages of detailed notes if one is particularly interested in the details or the basis of opinions.

Heavy duty

Customer Rating:

I heard about this book on Radio 4 and enjoy historical novels which this is not of course! This is a heavy duty tome which details the lives of Thomas More & family, it is accurate & fascinating but written more like a reference book to dip in & out of for information than a book to read from start to finish. It could do with editing: his professional life is covered then in the next chapter it goes back several years to cover his personal life. Also there are some very detailed chapters on legal points not relevant to his story which makes it a slog. Clearly this has been written for students of this period not for the general public.