Merivel: A Man of His Time

Rose Tremain

ISBN 10: 070118521X / ISBN 13: 9780701185213

Published by Chatto & Windus, 2012

About this Item

[Author], [Publisher]. NB: This is a secondhand book in very good condition. See our FAQs for more information. Please note that the jacket image is indicative only. Author: Rose Tremain Format: Paperback Number of Pages: 352 Get ready to laugh, prepare to weep -- Robert Merivel is back in Rose Tremain's magical sequel to Restoration. Robert Merivel, courtier to Charles II is no longer a young man -- but off he goes to France in search of the Sun King and to Switzerland in pursuit of a handsome woman. Versailles -- all glitter in front and squalor behind -- is a fiasco- Merivel is forced to share an attic (and a chamber pot) with a Dutch clock-maker while attempting to sustain himself on peas and jam and water from the fountains. Switzerland, by contrast, is perhaps a little too comfortable. But the lady, a clever botanist, leads Merivel deliciously on -- until her jealous husband bursts in with duelling pistols.As he narrates the picaresque journey, Merivel gets into all sorts of scrapes; he is torn between enjoying himself and making something of his life, through medicine and the study of science. He tries to be diligent, but constantly backslides into laugher and laziness. A big-hearted rogue who loves his daughter, his country house and the English King . Merivel is Everyman -- and he speaks directly to us down the centuries.

Seller Inventory # 9780701185213-SECONDHAND

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Merivel: A Man of His Time
• Publisher: Chatto & Windus
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 070118521X
• ISBN 13: 9780701185213
• Binding: Secondhand, Paperback
• Book Type: Secondhand, Paperback

About this title

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 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.