Bøger af A. N. Wilson

A.N. Wilson is a noted and prize winning biographer with studies of Tolstoy, Dickens, Milton and C.S. Lewis to his credit among others. Here he turns his outstanding gifts to a study of the life and thought of Goethe - poet, dramatist, politician. Goethe's life touched every aspect of what made the world become modern. And the great poetic drama of Faust is in essence the story of this. Not a biography in the traditional sense, Wilson breaks the mould - it is the portrait of an age seen through the prism of Goethe's continuing obsession with the Faust myth - the story of a German necromancer who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power. The relevance of this will not escape the modern reader and Goethe is shown to be one of the great prophets of modern Europe, the Europe of today.

From the author of the critically acclaimed Victoria comes a celebration of the life and times of Queen Elizabeth II. In this original and vibrant examination of the life and times of Queen Elizabeth II, biographer and novelist A.N. Wilson paints a vivid portrait of 'Lilibet' the woman, and of her reign. He also considers the history of the monarchy, drawing a line that stretches from Queen Victoria to the bloody history of Europe in the twentieth century, examining how and why the Royal Family has survived. In part historical overview, but with a keen eye to the future, Wilson writes with his signature warmth, intelligence, and humor, celebrating the life of the Queen and her role as figurehead of Britain and the Commonwealth.

For William Butler Yeats, Dante Alighieri was "the chief imagination of Christendom." For T. S. Eliot, he was of supreme importance, both as poet and philosopher. Coleridge championed his introduction to an English readership. Tennyson based his poem "Ulysses" on lines from the Inferno. Byron chastised an "Ungrateful Florence" for exiling Dante. The Divine Comedy resonates across five hundred years of our literary canon. In Dante in Love, A. N. Wilson presents a glittering study of an artist and his world, arguing that without an understanding of medieval Florence, it is impossible to grasp the meaning of Dante's great poem. He explains how the Italian states were at that time locked into violent feuds, mirrored in the ferocious competition between the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy. He shows how Dante's preoccupations with classical mythology, numerology, and the great Christian philosophers inform every line of the Comedy. Dante in Love also explores the enigma of the man who never wrote about the mother of his children, yet immortalized the mysterious Beatrice whom he barely knew. With a biographer's eye for detail and a novelist's comprehension of the creative process, A. N. Wilson paints a masterful portrait of Dante Alighieri and unlocks one of the seminal works of literature for a new generation of readers.

The distinguished historian A.N. Wilson has charted, in vivid detail, Britain's rise to world dominance, a tale of how one small island nation came to be the mightiest, richest country on earth, reigning over much of the globe. Now in his much anticipated sequel to the classic The Victorians, he describes how in little more than a generation Britain's power and influence in the world would virtually dissolve. In After the Victorians, Wilson presents a panoramic view of an era, stretching from the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 to the dawn of the cold war in the early 1950s. He offers riveting accounts of the savagery of World War I and the world-altering upheaval of the Communist Revolution. He explains Britain's role in shaping the destiny of the Middle East. And he casts a bright new light on the World War II years: Britain played a central role in defeating Germany but at a severe cost. The nation would emerge from the war bankrupt and fatally weakened, sidelined from world politics, while America would assume the mantle of dominant world power, facing off against the Soviet Union in the cold war. Wilson's perspective is not confined to the trenches of the battlefield and the halls of parliament: he also examines the parallel story of the beginnings of Modernism-he visits the novelists, philosophers, poets, and painters to see what they reveal about the activities of the politicians, scientists, and generals.Blending military, political, social, and cultural history of the most dramatic kind, A.N. Wilson offers an absorbing portrait of the decline of one of the world's great powers. The result is a fresh account of the birth pangs of the modern world, as well as a timely analysis of imperialism and its discontents.

A Bonfire of the Vanities for contemporary LondonFrom A. N. Wilson, the renowned historian and novelist, comes a stunningly bold new work of fiction set in the darkly glamorous media world. Wilson's London is a bleak, if occasionally hilarious, place: murderous, lustful, money-obsessed, and haunted by strange gods. The Daily Legion is a rag that peddles celebrity gossip and denounces asylum seekers. The secret is that its financial survival depends on the support of a brutal African government. Recklessly defending this corrupt dictatorship, the newspaper faces off against Father Vivyan Chell, an Anglican monk and missionary who is working to overthrow the corrupt regime. They wage a smear campaign against the priest. Freedom fighters join the battle. Violence escalates. Called "a big, broad, sweeping book, as disturbing as it is funny" by The Guardian, My Name Is Legion is a savage satire on the morality of contemporary Britain-its press, its politics, its church, its rich, its underclass. At times shocking, at times tragic, it is a provocative take on present-day England, delivering both delicious fun and acid social commentary.

"Proustian without the pretensions" ("Kirkus Reviews"), this marvelous work offers a "rich culmination of Wilson's masterful portrait of a generation in its heyday and decline . . . presented with ironic humor and dense with engaging ideas and indelible characters" ("Publishers Weekly").

In this delightful novel, both mystery and comedy of manners, A. N. Wilson continues the strange tale of Julian Ramsay, chronicler of that distinguished literary family, the Lampitts. The story opens in the mid-1960s on a note of gruesome drama, as the fabulously wealthy Virgil D. Everett, Jr., is pushed to his death from a Manhattan skyscraper. Does Everett's murder have anything to do with his ownership of the manuscripts known as the Lampitt Papers? Over thirty years later, actor and Lampitt biographer Julian Ramsay finds himself in New York with his "One Man Show" about James Lampitt's life and experiences. Ramsay's recollections take us on a fascinating journey back to the late 1960s, encompassing America, England, and Italy at a time of groundbreaking scientific research and intense theological debate. It is a journey that may reveal the secret to Everett's death and, ultimately, the true content of the Lampitt Papers. This witty and insightful drama will enchant readers already familiar with the Lampitt family, and it is a richly rewarding novel in its own right.

London has always been much more than a capital city. Its allure is so powerful that the city of monarchs and merchants once prompted Samuel Johnson to declare, "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life." From the Great Fire of 1666 to the Blitz of World War II, from the building of the Tower of London to the building of Canary Wharf, this prodigious city has long stood at the heart of English national life. At one time the center of the greatest mercantile empire the world has ever known, today London remains one of the major financial hubs of the world, as well as one of the most interesting tourist destinations in the English-speaking world. In this fascinating trip through time and space, celebrated biographer and novelist A. N. Wilson gathers a collection of literature that reflects not merely a sense of place but also the teeming variety of the town that, in its very refusal to be defined, so consistently captures the world's interest. The Norton Book of London views the city through the eyes of writers as various as Dickens and Joe Orton, Dostoyevsky and Lenin, Boswell and Martin Amis. We see criminal London, low life and high life, beggars and politicians, royal families, intellectuals and animals, in a wonderful portrait that celebrates London both past and present. From Black Beauty to Virginia Woolf, Wilson has scoured the shelves for a rich potpourri of the familiar, the diverting, and the strange.

A brilliant and insightful celebration of the imaginative genius of Charles Dickens, published to commemorate the 150th anniversary of his death.

This acclaimed biography charts the progress of the brilliant, prolific writer, C. S. Lewis.C. S. Lewis was a deeply complex man, capable of inspiring both great devotion and great hostility. This acclaimed biography charts the progress of the clever child from the 'Little End Room' of his Ulster childhood and adult life, exploring Lewis's unwilling conversion to Christianity, the genesis of his writing, and the web of his relationships.

The magnificent and definitive biography of Prince Albert, by one of Britain's best biographers and the author of Victoria: A Life.

From one of our leading novelists and historians comes a breathtakingly vivid novel that recalls the three voyages Captain Cook made to the southern hemisphere, culminating in the last, fateful expedition on which he was brutally murdered

From one of our leading social and cultural historians comes a dazzling and original exploration of how, and why, we should still be reading the Bible, even if we no longer believe.

For over half a millennium, The Comedy has inspired writers from Shakespeare to Beckett. Dante's epic journey - out of the raging inferno to the gates of paradise - continues to dazzle readers today. In Dante In Love, A N Wilson brings to life one of the western canon's most enigmatic figures.

People, not abstract ideas, make history, and nowhere is this more revealed than in A. The 'global village' is a Victorian village and many of the ideas we take for granted, for good or ill, originated with these extraordinary, self-confident people. Wilson shows us remarkable people in the very act of creating the Victorian age.

Biographer and novelist A. N. Wilson, whose most recent work on the life of Queen Victoria was an enormous critical and commercial success, turns his clear eye to our own Queen, Elizabeth II.In this unusual and vibrant examination of the life and times of Britain's most iconic living figure, Wilson considers the history of the monarchy, drawing a line that stretches from Queen Victoria to the bloody history of Europe in the twentieth century, examining how and why the Royal Family has survived. He paints a vivid portrait of 'Lilibet' the woman, and of her reign, throughout which she has remained stalwart, unmoving, a trait some regard as dullness, but which Wilson argues is the key to her survival. He outlines the case for a Republic, arguing that this will almost certainly happen at some point after her reign is at an end, at least in Australia. In part historical overview, but with a keen eye to the future, A. N. Wilson writes with his signature warmth, intelligence and humour, celebrating the life of the Queen and her role as figurehead of Britain and the Commonwealth, while asking candidly whether we can remain a constitutional monarchy.

A stunning, powerfully moving novel of faith and humanity, temptation and transgression from literary tour de force, A.N. Wilson.

A dramatic, revisionist panorama of an age whose material triumphs and spiritual crises prefigure our own.

"Must surely rank among the most impressively intelligent biographies ever written."-Zena Sutherland, The Economist

A. N. Wilson's first novel for five years tells the epic story of the Wedgwood dynasty.