Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England (Library Edition)

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Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England (Library Edition) PDF

Review

''I feel I've been waiting to read this book a long time. It's a fluent and compelling account of the cost of founding the Tudor Dynasty: of a clever, ruthless, enigmatic monarch, a refugee all his early life, king by right of conquest, prepared to harass and frighten his subjects into submission: a man content to be feared and not loved. The level of detail is fascinating and beautifully judged. The book shows what a mistake it is to regard these closing years of the reign simply as a curtain raiser for Henry ViiI. 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, Man Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall
''This is 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. Tom Penn does this triumphantly and in the process manages to place his subject in a vividly realized 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, New York Times bestselling author
''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.'' --Guardian (London)
''Stunning . . . This is not a new story--but in Penn's hands, it is a revelation . . . Penn 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.'' --Telegraph (London)
''With a sharp eye for detail and adroit use of a gifted historical imagination . . . [Thomas Penn] 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
''Winter King offers us the fullest, deepest, most compelling insight into the warped psychology of the Tudor Dynasty's founder to have appeared since [Francis] Bacon wrote.'' --Financial Times
''Succeeds brilliantly . . . [A] finely drawn portrait . . . Penn's deft turn of phrase superbly re-creates the drama and personalities of the court.'' --Sunday Times (London)
''A tour de force.'' --Spectator
''A wonderful read, as rich in character and drama as Wolf Hall, only shorter and true.'' --John Carey, author of William Golding: The Man Who Wrote ''Lord of the Flies''

About the Author

THOMAS PENN has a PhD in early Tudor history from Clare College, Cambridge. Winter King is his first book.