Merivel: A Man of His Time - Softcover

Rose Tremain

Softcover

ISBN 10: 070118521X ISBN 13: 9780701185213

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 2012

Synopsis

Merivel is an unforgettable hero―soulful, funny, outrageous and achingly sad. His unmistakable, self-mocking voice speaks directly to us down the centuries. From the Orange Prize–winning author Rose Tremain comes a brilliant and picaresque novel of seventeenth-century England. In the wake of the gaudy years of the Restoration, Robert Merivel, physician and courtier to Charles II, faces the agitations and anxieties of middle age. Questions crowd his mind: has he been a good father? Is he a fair master? Is he the King’s friend or the King’s slave? In search of answers, Merivel sets off for the French court of Versailles, where―inevitably―misadventures ensue.

About this title

About the Author

Rose Tremain's prize-winning books, including The Road Home, The Gustav Sonata, Merivel, and The American Lover, have been published in thirty countries. Chancellor of the University of East Anglia, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and member of the Royal Society of Literature, she lives in Norfolk, England with the biographer Richard Holmes.

Review

“What ultimately makes the book such a joy is simply being in Merivel’s company. His narration is by turns rueful, comic, despairing and joyful; but it’s always bursting with life, always good-hearted―and always entirely loveable.”
- James Walton, The Daily Mail

“Robert Merivel is one of the great imaginative creations in English literature of the past 50 years. [Merivel is] as rich and as dazzling as its predecessor―steeped in wise and witty reflection on the great Mysteries of Life, and the timeless, futile Hopes and Follies.”
- Mick Brown, The Daily Telegraph

“Tremain’s control of her character and her reflective but often dramatic unfolding of events are impressive acts of authorial ventriloquism, in which she gives a nod to the great diarists of that era but carries off her own man’s story with wit, grace and originality. . . . She not only effortlessly sustains momentum and mood, but brings the novel to as near a perfect ending as one could wish.”
- Rosemary Goring, The Herald

“When he appeared in 1989, Merivel was truly the man of the Thatcherite moment, an individualistic, hedonistic creature who held up a mirror to his audience. So does he still have something to say to us in 2012? Resoundingly, yes.”
- Daisy Hay, The Observer

“Richly marbled with intelligence, compassion and compelling characters, leavened with flourishes of lyricism and and attractive tolerance towards human frailties.”
- Angus Clarke, The Times

Edition details

• Publisher: Chatto & Windus
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 070118521X
• ISBN 13: 9780701185213
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352