NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
"This scrupulously elegant account of the creation of what four
centuries of history has confirmed is the finest English-language work
of all time, is entirely true to its subject: Adam Nicolson's lapidary
prose is masterly, his measured account both as readable as the curious
demand and as dignified as the story deserves." -- Simon Winchester,
author of Krakatoa
In God's Secretaries, Adam Nicolson gives a fascinating and dramatic
account of the era of the King James Bible and its translation,
immersing us in an age whose greatest monument is not a painting or a
building but a book.
A network of complex currents flowed across Jacobean England. This was
the England of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Bacon; the era of the Gunpowder
Plot and the worst outbreak of the plague. Jacobean England was both
more godly and less godly than the country had ever been, and the entire
culture was drawn taut between these polarities.
This was the world that created the King James Bible. It is the greatest
work of English prose ever written, and it is no coincidence that the
translation was made at the moment "Englishness," specifically the
English language itself, had come into its first passionate maturity.
The English of Jacobean England has a more encompassing idea of its own
scope than any form of the language before or since. It drips with
potency and sensitivity. The age, with all its conflicts, explains the
book.
This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book,
including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
