Morality play - Hardcover

UNSWORTH, Barry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0241133416 ISBN 13: 9780241133415

Publisher: Doubleday, 1995

Synopsis

It is late in the fourteenth century, a time of calamity such as few others have been, marked by war, plague and fear of hell-fire. Nicholas Barber, a footloose young cleric, has left his diocese without the Bishop's leave. He has sung in taverns, he has gambled away his holy relics, he has committed adultery. Now, to compound his sins, he has joined a troupe of travelling players, a thing expressly forbidden to members of the clergy. Trouble enough, but nothing compared to what happens when the company decides to enact the murder of the young boy called Thomas Wells.
Morality Play is Barry Unsworth's first novel since winning the Booker Prize. It is a dark and powerful fable about the masks we wear, the roles we play and the corrupted nature of justice.

About this title

Book Description

National Bestseller

From the Publisher

Barry Unsworth, author of the Booker Prize-winnings Sacred Hunger, turns to 14th-century England with a novel of foul doings in the time of The Name of the Rose.

In Morality Play, Barry Unsworth, indisputably the finest writer of literate historical fiction alive today, brings 14th-century England to vibrant life, transporting us back to this "distant mirror" to show us a world that, beneath its medieval trappings, is full of the same corruption and moral dilemmas that we face today. Nicholas Barber is a 23-year-old monk who, fearing the wrath of his bishop for breaking his vows of chastity, takes up with a troupe of traveling players. Coming to a small town in the middle of winter, the troupe puts on its usual morality play, only to get caught up in a drama of a different kind. A murder has taken place and a mute-and-deaf girl stands condenmed, awaiting execution. Seeing an opportunity to attract a large audience, the players go through the town collecting information, which they weave into their second performance. As they perform, though, the story grows, as does the audience. Soon they learn that what makes for good drama is far closer to the dangerous truth than they originally imagined and they attract the concerned attention of the local potentate, the powerful Lord de Guise, who summons them to his castle for a "private performance." Morality Play is a brilliant novel that holds us in its powerful grip as it deftly portrays how art can, quite literally, reveal truth.

Edition details

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0241133416
• ISBN 13: 9780241133415
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 188