A. N. Wilson's powerful new novel explores the life and times of one of
the greatest British explorers, Captain Cook, and the golden age of
Britain's period of expansion and exploration.
Wilson's protagonist, witness to Cook's brilliance and wisdom, is George
Forster, who travelled with Cook as botanist on board the HMS
Resolution, on Cook's second expedition to the southern hemisphere, and
penned a famous account of the journey. Resolution moves back and
forth across time, to depict Forster's time with Cook, and his
extraordinary later life, which ended with his death in Paris, during
the French Revolution. Wilson once again demonstrates his great powers
as a master craftsman of the historical and the human in this richly
evoked novel, which brings to life the real and the extraordinary,
brilliantly drawing together a remarkable cast of characters in order to
look at human endeavour, ingenuity and valour.