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  • Published: 22 May 2025
  • ISBN: 9781405953634
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 624
Categories:

Thomas More

A Life and Death in Tudor England





Worshipped as a saint, detested as a torturer, admired as revolutionary, condemned as dogmatic: the definitive biography of the man who dominated England in the first half of the 16th century

Thomas More is one of the most famous – or infamous – figures in English history. Is he a saintly scholar and an inspiration for statesmen, socialists and intellectuals even today? Or is he the stubborn zealot famously portrayed in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall?

Here is the definitive biography of this hypnotic, flawed figure. Overturning many interpretations of the sixteenth century, Joanne Paul shows More to have been an intellectual and political giant of his age, central to the making of modern Europe. Drawing on new archival discoveries and over a decade's research into More's life and work, this is a richly-told story of family, faith and politics.

  • Published: 22 May 2025
  • ISBN: 9781405953634
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 624
Categories:

About the author

Joanne Paul

Joanne Paul is a Renaissance and Early Modern Historian at the University of Sussex. Her work has featured in BBC History Magazine, History Today and Prospect. In 2017, Joanne was selected to be one of ten BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinkers. She currently runs the Primary Sources: Conversations with History Makers podcast.

Also by Joanne Paul

See all

Praise for Thomas More

Fans of The House of Dudley – and , indeed , 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

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

Forget […] Hilary Mantel’s caricatures. In this excellent study, Thomas More is reborn as a complex, absorbing man

DAILY TELEGRAPH

Very impressive

ALISON WEIR

A work of proper scholarly history as well as a wonderful narrative read...Joanne Paul goes back to the words More wrote himself, to try and get at More before fame and the accusations against him took hold. I so enjoyed the result

SUSANNAH LIPSCOMB

THE definitive biography of one of history’s most complex and often inscrutable characters

NATHEN AMIN, author of Son of Prophesy: The Rise of Henry Tudor

Paul gives us a movingly human picture of a family man, scholar, politician and, ultimately, political martyr. As compelling as a novel, the story of More's rise and fall is vividly told

ELIZABETH NORTON

To show us More as other than saint or villain, [Paul's] readable biography immerses us in More's busy, messy and changing world ... engrossing

The Times

A spectacular achievement

Nicola Tallis

Absorbing, meticulously researched and expertly executed

Lindsey Fitzharris

Brilliant and lucid. This is an original and illuminating work

Suzannah Lipscomb

Praise for Joanne Paul

Death, desire, power and scandal - this is riveting stuff. Paul produces a well-written, historically grounded page-turner

Spectator
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