Thomas More is one of the great figures in English history, but his life and career bear little resemblance to the myth of the saint or the 'man for all seasons'. In this remarkable new biography Peter Ackroyd reveals a man more troubled and more perplexing than that of any previous account.
More was an eminent lawyer who wore a hair shirt and who, in the privacy of his library, whipped himself. A man of the Renaissance, author of Utopia and supporter of the new learning, he was a profound traditionalist who gave his life in the service of the old faith.
The Life of Thomas More offers a portrait as decisive as Holbein's famous drawing, while also brilliantly recreating the conditions of Catholic England at the end of the fifteenth century.
