Author:Adrian Tinniswood
Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize.
In this extraordinary saga, Adrian Tinniswood draws on tens of thousands of letters, which survived by chance in an attic, to reveal the remarkable world of the Verneys, a family of Buckinghamshire gentry in the seventeenth century.
Here is Edmund Verney, Charles I's standard bearer at Edgehill, who died still clutching the King's standard, and his children: Ralph, whose support of the Parliamentarian cause during the Civil War forced him into exile; Mun, a professional soldier who survived Cromwell's attack on Drogheda in 1649, only to be stabbed to death two days later; Mall, who fell pregnant out of wedlock, and Bess, who ran off with a clergyman. There was also Henry, who was obsessed with horse-racing; Cary, who gambled away a fortune, and Tom, a devout Christian and a petty crook.
The next generation led equally exciting lives. Ralph's son Jack went to Syria and made a fortune. Cousin Pen stayed at home and slept with her sister's fiancé. Cousin Dick was hanged at Tyburn. Jack's brother Edmund married a girl who was rich, beautiful and deeply in love with him and within months of the marriage, she lost her mind.
The Verneys is narrative history at its very best - fascinating, surprising, enthralling.
A marvellous history. Intimate and compelling, it's an exciting tale of adventure on the high seas and a family torn apart by civil war
—— Daily MailA compelling drama of marriage, death, madness and adventure
—— Stella Tillyard , Sunday TimesA fascinating and engrossing tale
—— Sunday TelegraphMuch more than a powerful family saga, full of spectacular rows and tearful makings-up, joyful births and tragic early deaths... A model for how biography and social history can be made to work magnificently together
—— Financial TimesA wonderfully immediate, intimate portrait of an age
—— ScotsmanExcellent
—— SpectatorWonderfully engaging...Tinniswood has brought the Verneys to life in robustly vivid style
—— GuardianA wonderful group portrait of an eccentric and ill-starred dynasty. Expertly handling the humorous words and unwise deeds of several generations of Verneys, Adrian Tinniswood breathes life into the turbulent history of an entire century
—— Ross King, author of Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling and Brunelleschi's DomeAdrian Tinniswood's The Verneys takes us on a fascinating grand tour through a world turned upside down. It is an intimate, engaging, and richly rewarding book, showing the seventeenth century in all its splendor and brutality
—— David King, author of When the World Came to Town and Finding AtlantisLike the river itself, Magris carries all along with him. Philosophy, war, natural history and politics are blended together with a mixture of curiosity, stylishness and all-encompassing knowledge
—— ObserverItalo Calvino described a classic as a book to which one can return and always find something new. Such a book is Magris’s Danube. In another 30 years we will find the same words and yet another book, fresh revelations divining a different world, a river that never ends, forever lighting out for the mythical territory of freedom.
—— Richard Flanagan , GuardianIt is the small revelations about the character of Blair that make this book worthwhile
—— Ross Clark , The ExpressIt's a gripping insight into the ex-PM's ten years of power . . . It will take a lot for many people to read his own take on the rise and fall of New Labour, but those that do might be reminded of the charm and vision that swept him to power
—— News of the WorldI have read many a prime ministerial memoir and none of the other authors has been as self-deprecating, as willing to admit mistakes and to tell jokes against themselves
—— Mary Ann Sieghart , The IndependentPaints a candid picture of his friend and rival, Gordon Brown, and of their relationship
—— Patrick Hennessy , The Sunday Telegraph
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