A Place of Greater Safety

Description

From the double Man Booker prize-winning author of Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror & the Light comes an extraordinary work of historical imagination - this is Hilary Mantel's epic novel of the French Revolution. A spellbinding novel which recounts the events between the fall of the Ancient Regime and the peak of the Terror, as seen through the eyes of the French Revolution's three protagonists - Georges-Jacques Danton, Maximilien Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins, men whose mix of ambition, idealism, and ego helped unleash the darker side of the Revolution's ideals and brought them eventually to their own tragic ends. Critically acclaimed upon first publication, 'A Place of Greater Safety' is one of Mantel's most celebrated works of fiction.

Hilary Mantel was born in Derbyshire. She was educated at a convent and later studied law. After ten years abroad in Africa and the Middle East, she returned to Britain in 1985 to make a career as a writer.

'Hilary Mantel has soaked herself in the history of the period!and a striking picture emerges of the exhilaration, dynamic energy and stark horror of those fearful days.' Daily Telegraph 'Superbly readable!nothing less than a well-researched but richly idiosyncratic fictional history of the French Revolution!an assured and strange masterpiece.' Sunday Telegraph 'I cannot think of a historical novel as good as this until on goes back to Marguerite Yourcenar's "Memoirs of Hadrian", published forty years ago.' Evening Standard 'Marvellous!her great achievement is not just in making these long-dead demagogues live and breathe, but setting them in a brilliantly-realised family context, and surrounding them with vivid womenfolk who question, challenge or endure. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Hilary Mantel captures it all.' Time Out 'Crafty tensions, twists and high drama!a bravura display of her endlessly inventive, eerily observant style' Times Literary Supplement 'An extraordinary and overwhelming novel!immensely detailed and yet fast-moving!she has set herself to capture the excitement and intellectual fervour of the period. She does it admirably!a tour de force.' Allan Massie, Scotsman