Peter Ackroyd's The Life of Thomas Moreis a magnificent reconstruction of the life and imagination of one of the most remarkable figures in 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 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 VII, in severing England's ties from the Catholic Church. In Ackroyd's hands, this "man for all seasons" emerges in the fullness of his complex humanity; we see the unexpected side of his character as well as his indisputable moral courage. Acclaimed for his magisterial biographies of T. S. Eliot, Dickens, and Blake, Peter Ackroyd has once again scored a triumph. In this issue of Bold Type you'll find an interview with Peter Ackroyd and an illuminating excerpt from The Life of Thomas More.
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