Funeral Games by Mary Renault
Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-three, leaving behind an empire that stretched from Greece and Egypt to India. After Alexander's death in 323 B.C. his only direct heirs were two unborn sons and a simpleton half-brother. Every long-simmering faction exploded into the vacuum of power. Wives, distant relatives and generals all vied for the loyalty of the increasingly undisciplined Macedonian army. Most failed and were killed in the attempt. For no one possessed the leadership to keep the great empire from crumbling. But Alexander's legend endured to spread into worlds he had seen only in dreams.
Renault's skill is in immersing us in their world, drawing us into its strangeness, its violence and beauty.. a literary conjuring trick ... so convincing and passionately conjured The Times The Alexander Trilogy stands as one of the most important works of fiction in the 20th century ... it represents the pinnacle of [Renault's] career ... Renault's skill is in immersing us in their world, drawing us into its strangeness, its violence and beauty. It's a literary conjuring trick like all historical fiction - it can only ever be an approximation of the truth. But in Renault's hands, the trick is so convincing and passionately conjured. -- Antonia Senior The Times
Mary Renault (1905-1983) was born in London and educated at St Hughs, Oxford. She trained as a nurse at Oxford's Radcliffe Infirmary, where she met her lifelong partner, Julie Mullard. Her first novel, Purposes of Love, was published in 1937. In 1948, after North Face won a MGM prize worth $150,000, she and Mullard emigrated to South Africa. There, Renault was able to write forthrightly about homosexual relationships for the first time - in her masterpiece, The Charioteer (1953), and then in her first historical novel, The Last of the Wine (1956). Renault's vivid novels set in the ancient world brought her worldwide fame. In 2010 Fire From Heaven was shortlisted for the Lost Booker of 1970.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781844089598 |
| ISBN 10 | 1844089592 |
| Title | Funeral Games |
| Author | Mary Renault |
| Series | Virago Modern Classics |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Little, Brown Book Group |
| Year published | 2014-08-07 |
| Number of pages | 336 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |