Clerkenwell Tales by Peter Ackroyd

Clerkenwell Tales by Peter Ackroyd

Brilliant historical novel, set in London in the late 14th century. 'I am sister to the day and night. I am sister to the woods.' Sister Clarisse, a nun in the House of St Mary at Clerkenwell, experiences visions. She dreams of the English King. Are her prophesies the babblings of the crazed? Or can she 'see' a future in which Henry Bolingbroke overthrows Richard II? This clever and colourful novel begins with The Nun's Tale, and continues with The Friar's Tale, The Merchant's Tale and The Clerk's Tale...Thus, story by story, Peter Ackroyd builds his portrait of medieval London. The people are disenchanted by the Church, with its wealth and corruption, its Pope in Rome and its Pope in Avignon. But heresy is dangerous...almost as dangerous as rebellion. This is a novel about spies and counter-spies, radicals and idealists, murderers and arsonists, sects and secret societies...

Another year, another Ackroyd, although his 2003 offering marks a return to the historical novels which helped to establish his reputationThe Clerkenwell Tales' backdrop of late fourteenth-century London is coloured by the narratives of a nun, a friar, a merchant and a clerk, told with a nod and a wink towards Chaucer's prose and passions. The nun in question, Sister Clarisse, opens the book, a woman whose premonitions of a future in which Henry Bolingbroke overthrows Richard II causes much concern, not all of it sceptical. What follows is a portrait of a time when disenchantment with the Church and the attendant dangers of heresy results in spying, secret societies and murder.

Peter Ackroyd lives in London. He is the author of biographies of Dickens, Blake and Thomas More and of the bestselling London: The Biography. His most recent book is Albion: the Origins of the English Imagination. His novels are listed opposite with * beside the historical novels.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781856197069
ISBN 10	1856197069
Title	Clerkenwell Tales
Author	Peter Ackroyd
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Vintage Publishing
Year published	2003-07-31
Number of pages	224
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.