Customer Reviews
an engrossing read - By: F. Alexander, 05 Nov 2008 
Having hugely enjoyed the previous, excellent study of Mary Queen of Scots by this author, I was keen to read his next book. John Guy makes the complicated & precarious world of Thomas More & his family understandable & exciting to non specialist readers such as myself. He includes the sort of precise, telling detail & explanation of the lives they led & the beliefs they held, which makes they themselves & their frightening situation become very real. The importance of Margaret's positionin the story, brought into focus after so long, was satisfying, & gave a new perspective to events which we might have the impression that we already understand. We do not. Not until this book has been read!
A Masterpiece - By: Victor Grignard, 17 Oct 2008 I just got this book & loved it. It's an absolutely stunning read, totally engrossing, & it's actually a better book than Guy's "My Heart is My Own", his biography of Mary Queen of Scots that won the Whitbread Biography Award. For the first timein 500 years we see Thomas More as he really was, & how far he relied on his brilliant daughter, Margaret, married to the shallow timeserver, William Roper, who fooled everyone by stealing the story 20 years after More's execution & making himself a central characterin it, when really he just took the oath to Henry & ran for cover. The research Guy must have done to write this book is amazing. There are things you'll never find outin the biographies by Chambers, Marius & Ackroyd. As well as hearing about the black sheepin the More family, we see how Margaret Roper's uncle, John Rastell, wrote a rival version of Utopia & went on a voyage of discovery to America, before falling outin Parliament with Thomas More over More's persecution of the Protestants. More was a genuine hero of conscience, the only honest man among the thugsin Henry VIII's service, but he certainly wasn't a liberal. In helping her father defeat a bullying tyrant, Margaret, who was clever enough to correct the mistakesin the writings of Erasmus of Rotterdam, fought for him, even outwitting Thomas Cromwell, Henry's chief minister. She put her own immortal soul at riskin order to get inside the Tower to offer her father the comfort & support he needed, but by propping him up emotionally, she ensured that he conquered his fears of Henry's retribution. She was the woman behind the martyr, & the only thing that's more amazing than her story is how long it's taken for us to find out the truth.
A fascinating read - By: F. Moore, 12 Oct 2008 I read this book after I saw Lisa Jardine's rave reviewin the Sunday Times & I thoroughly agree with her enthusiastic assessment. Jardine really knows what she is talking about!
The book is gripping right from the Prologuein which there is a flash forward & Margaret retrieves Thomas' head from display on London Bridge. The history of `my dearest Meg' & Thomas are then skilfully interwoven starting off with the environment into which Margaret was born & moving through her exceptional education & then focussing on Thomas's progression & eventual fatal conflict with Henry's dictatorial approach to the split with Rome & his instalment as Head of the Church of England.
With the possible exceptionin his delight at occasional bawdy entertainment, Thomas always appears a very personable yet principled person who would be much more interesting to meet than the cold fish Erasmus. I read Utopia a long time ago & it was very considerate of the author to give a short refresher & to relate the work to the prevailing circumstances.
This is a very readable book with nice short chapters & it is handsomely produced with many photographs, & the essential family trees. The author wears his considerable scholarship very lightly & there are 48 pages of detailed notes if one is particularly interestedin the details or the basis of opinions.
Heavy duty - By: V. Findlay, 20 Sep 2008 
I heard about this book on Radio 4 & enjoy historical novels which this is not of course! This is a heavy duty tome which details the lives of Thomas More & family, it is accurate & fascinating but written more like a reference book to dipin & out of for information than a book to read from start to finish. It could do with editing: his professional life is covered thenin the next chapter it goes back several years to cover his personal life. Also there are some very detailed chapters on legal points not relevant to his story which makes it a slog.
Clearly this has been written for students of this period not for the general public.
