Thomas More - by Joanne Paul (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The definitive biography of the man who dominated political and intellectual circles in England during the sixteenth century: Thomas More.

Born into the era of the Wars of the Roses, educated during the European Renaissance, rising to become Chancellor of England, and ultimately destroyed by Henry VIII, Thomas More was one of the most famous--and notorious--figures in English history.

Was he a saintly scholar, the visionary author of Utopia, and an inspiration for statesmen and intellectuals even today? Or was he the cruel zealot famously portrayed in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall? Thomas More: A Life is a monumental biography of this hypnotic, flawed figure. Overturning prior interpretations of this titan of the sixteenth century, Joanne Paul shows Thomas More to have been intellectually and politically central to the making of modern Europe.

Based on new archival discoveries and drawing on more than a decade of research into More's life and work, this is a richly told story of faith and politics that illuminates a man who, more than four hundred years after his execution, remains one of the most brilliant minds of the Renaissance.

Review Quotes

"[Paul's] descriptions themselves are superbly textured. Much of the book reads almost as if Paul had followed More around with a video camera, deftly recording (with all the sights, sounds, even smells) the events, discussions, and disputes through which his life unfolded."--Law & Liberty

"Considerable literary craftsmanship is shown in weaving his life through the period."--Times Literary Supplement

"A magisterial new biography."--Smithsonian Magazine

"An engaging, readable, often fast-paced narrative. Along the way we encounter More as one of the leading humanist scholars of his age, the head of a loving and pious family, a diligent administrator and a servant of his fellow London citizens and the Crown."--The Tablet

"'A rich, immersive and clear-sighted exploration of this most contested of Tudor lives. Joanne Paul vividly reconstructs the late medieval world that formed Thomas More and which, as that world started to split apart, he fought courageously and vainly to save. In stripping away the accretions of historical reputation-making, shereveals More as a figure of his age, in all his complex and contradictory humanity."--Thomas Penn, author of Winter King

"A figure as complex as Thomas More is no easy subject, yet Joanne Paul's account of his life is nothing short of spectacular. Impeccably researched and intelligently written, Paul handles More's story with the perfect combination of scholarship and verve. With Paul's truly extraordinary flair for storytelling, this is going to be the definitive biography of Thomas More for decades to come."--Nicola Tallis, author of Young Elizabeth

"Achieve[s] that increasingly rare balance between expertise and style. This book beautifully captures both the life of a fascinating man and the fading world that he died trying to preserve. More's life had the arc of a Shakespearean tragedy. Ms. Paul skillfully conveys the stakes of More's struggle [and] narrates the story's denouement in riveting detail. Ms. Paul's portrait is sympathetic, but not hagiographic. Her book is a subtle effort to explore the great paradox of Thomas More. The martyr to conscience is easily dismissed as a fool or a scoundrel. More, in Ms. Paul's wonderful account, is neither of these."--Jeffrey Collins, The Wall Street Journal

"Fans of Wolf Hall and 'A Man for All Seasons' will find much to enjoy in this immersive, richly told account of life, death, faith and politics at the early Tudor court." --The Spectator

"Joanne Paul has created a portrait of Thomas More that is epic, intimate and profoundly relatable to the modern reader. In Paul's hands he is neither overly good nor bad; he just is. We are in a new age of tyrants--Thomas More shows the necessity of speaking truth to power at all costs."--Leah Redmond Chang, Women's Prize longlisted historian of Young Queens

"To show us More as other than saint or villain, her new, hugely readable biography immerses us in More's busy, messy, and changing world. Paul is brilliant at bringing the swirl of Catholic England to life. Paul's engrossing biography more than shows More and his world are compelling, strange, and dark."--The Times (London)

About the Author

Joanne Paul, author of The House of Dudley, is a senior lecturer in early modern history at the University of Sussex. A BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker, her research focuses on the intellectual and cultural history of the Renaissance and early modern periods. She has written for the Cambridge University Press 'Ideas in Context' series and has been widely praised for her work on Thomas More, William Shakespeare, Machiavelli, and Thomas Hobbes. She lives in Sussex.