Most Popular Books by A. N. Wilson

In this landmark biography of Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, A. N. Wilson narrates the complex drama of the writer''s life: his childhood of aristocratic privilege but emotional deprivation, his discovery of his literary genius after aimless years of gambling and womanizing, and his increasingly disastrous marriage. Wilson sweeps away the long-held belief that Tolstoy''s works were the exact mirror of his life, and instead traces the roots of Tolstoy''s art to his relationship with God, with women, and with Russia. He also breaks new ground in recreating the world that shaped the great novelist''s life and art--the turmoil of ideas and politics in nineteenth-century Russia and the incredible literary renaissance that made Tolstoy''s work possible. "Admirable. . . . Absorbing. . . . Superb."--Anthony Burgess "Stands as a model of the biographer''s art: intelligent and opinionated, yet judicious--and, what''s more, deliciously readable."--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

In a book that is as daring and unconventional as it is scholarly, the celebrated biographer of Tolstoy and C.S. Lewis searches for the elusive historical reality in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Wilson enables readers of every shade of faith or skepticism to discover the man who became the central figure in Western civilization and whose teachings have survived nearly 2,000 years.

“[A] shimmering and rather wonderful biography.” —The Guardian When Queen Victoria died in 1901, she had ruled for nearly sixty-four years. She was the mother of nine and grandmother of forty-two and the matriarch of royal Europe through her children’s marriages. To many, Queen Victoria is a ruler shrouded in myth and mystique, an aging, stiff widow paraded as the figurehead to an all-male imperial enterprise. But in truth, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch was one of the most passionate, expressive, humorous, and unconventional women who ever lived, and the story of her life continues to fascinate. A. N. Wilson’s exhaustively researched and definitive biography includes a wealth of new material from previously unseen sources to show us Queen Victoria as she’s never been seen before. Wilson explores the curious set of circumstances that led to Victoria’s coronation, her strange and isolated childhood, her passionate marriage to Prince Albert and his pivotal influence even after death, and her widowhood and subsequent intimate friendship with her Highland servant John Brown, all set against the backdrop of this momentous epoch in Britain’s history—and the world’s. Born at the very moment of the expansion of British political and commercial power across the globe, Victoria went on to chart a unique course for her country even as she became the matriarch of nearly every great dynasty of Europe. Her destiny was thus interwoven with those of millions of people—not just in Europe but in the ever-expanding empire that Britain was becoming throughout the nineteenth century. The famed queen had a face that adorned postage stamps, banners, statues, and busts all over the known world. Wilson’s Victoria is a towering achievement, a masterpiece of biography by a writer at the height of his powers.

When Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953, many proclaimed the start of a new Elizabethan Age. Few had any inkling, however, of the stupendous changes that would occur over the next fifty years, both in Britain and around the world. In Our Times, A. N. Wilson takes the reader on an exhilarating journey through postwar Britain. With his acute eye not just for the broad social and cultural sweep but also for the telling detail, he brilliantly distills half a century of unprecedented social and political change. Here are the defining events and characters of the modern age, from the Suez crisis to Vietnam, from the Beatles to Princess Diana. Here are the Angry Young Men, the rise of pop culture and celebrity, industrial unrest and the Winter of Discontent, the Thatcher era and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. This book propels the reader from postwar austerity, to the end of the British Empire and the emergence of America as a superpower, to the multicultural Britain of today. With Our Times, Wilson triumphantly concludes the acclaimed trilogy that opened with The Victorians and was followed by After the Victorians. Our Times makes compelling reading for anyone interested in the forces that have shaped our world.

In this Elizabethan exploration, Wilson follows the stories of privateer Francis Drake, political intriguers like William Cecil and Francis Walsingham; and Renaissance literary geniuses from Sir Philip Sidney to Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare.

A revisionist panorama of the nineteenth century examines the era''s material and spiritual changes in the wake of emerging British capitalism and imperialism.

Known for his journalism, biographies and novels, A. N. Wilson turns a merciless searchlight on his own early life, his experience of sexual abuse, his catastrophic mistakes in love (sacred and profane) and his life in Grub Street – as a prolific writer. Before he came to London, as one of the “Best of Young British” novelists, and Literary Editor of the Spectator, we meet another A. N. Wilson. We meet his father, the Managing Director of Wedgwood, the grotesque teachers at his first boarding school, and the dons of Oxford – one of whom, at the age of just 20, he married, Katherine Duncan-Jones, the renowned Shakespearean scholar. The book begins with his heart-torn present-day visits to Katherine, now for decades his ex-wife, who has slithered into the torments of dementia. At every turn of this reminiscence, Wilson is baffled by his earlier self – whether he is flirting with unsuitable lovers or with the idea of the priesthood. His chapter on the High Camp seminary which he attended in Oxford is among the funniest in the book. We follow his unsuccessful attempts to become an academic, his aspirations to be a Man of Letters, and his eventual encounters with the famous, including some memorable meetings with royalty. The princesses, dons, paedophiles and journos who cross the pages are as sharply drawn as figures in Wilson''s early comic fiction. But there is also a tenderness here, in his evocation of those whom he has loved, and hurt, the most.

''A. N. Wilson''s biography of the German polymath is wild, brilliant and has all the intelligence to rival its subject'' - Frances Wilson, the Telegraph ''Rich and full and passionate and intelligent and deeply needed for these murky times'' – Ben Okri ''Exuberant and wide-ranging'' - Miranda Seymour, author of The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys A spellbinding recreation of Goethe''s life and work from one of our greatest biographers. Goethe was the inventor of the psychological novel, a pioneer scientist, great man of the theatre and a leading politician. As A. N. Wilson argues in this groundbreaking biography, it was his genius and insatiable curiosity that helped catapult the Western world into the modern era. A N. Wilson tackles the life of Goethe with characteristic wit and verve. From his youth as a wild literary prodigy to his later years as Germany''s most respected elder statesman, Wilson hones in on Goethe''s undying obsession with the work he would spend his entire life writing – Faust. Goethe spent over 60 years writing his retelling of Faust, a strange and powerful work that absorbed all the philosophical questions of his time as well as the revolutions and empires that came and went. It is his greatest work, but as Wilson explores, it is also something much more - it is the myth of how we came to be modern.

Provides a documented portrait of the well-known author.

From 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 author argues that religion has inspired many of man''s worst evils: war, prejudice, bigotry, cruelty, race hatred and fear. Without it, man would be free to be God. In this polemic, A.N.Wilson singles out the Pope and the Ayatollah for particular attack.

The incomparable A.N. Wilson takes on the Doubting Thomases in this search for what is true and knowable in the Christian faith. He explores the "topsy-turvy" morality of the Sermon on the Mount, ruminates on Tolstoy, and insists that what is unknowable is not therefore unbelievable.

From Chaucer to Churchill, from Pepys to Dickens - the great figures from London''s past all make their appearance in A. N. Wilson''s affectionate and passionate account of one of the world''s greatest cities. Dramatic events are here too - from the Great Fire to the Blitz, from the Peasants'' Revolt to Mosley''s fascist rallies. But he also looks at the physical transformations of the city: the elegant squares and pleasure gardens of the 18th century; the prodigious expansion of the 19th century and the Railway Age. He moves through the First World War and the ''Big Bang'' of the 1980s to celebrate the cosmopolitan nature of modern London while deploring the follies of recent urban planning.

The story of the sentimental education of a boy orphaned in World War II and brought up in a quiet English village by his aunt and his uncle, vicar of the local church.

"For those who seek coherence beyond the weekly wrap-up offered by PEOPLE magazine comes a book that ponders the deeper effects of this slow decline of the world''s last great monarchy....An interesting overview of what has happened to royalty." CHICAGO TRIBUNE Divorce and separation. Steamy telephone tapes. Brewing custody battles. Embarrassing photographs. Is the House of Windsor self-destructing? The brilliant writer A.N. Wilson, whose biographies include C.S. Lewis and Toltoy, sets out to answer this vexing and fascinating question in his spectacular new book. An observer and writer of great style and an Englishman of particular opinions, Wilson is uniquely placed to rail about the royal follies even as he defends the monarchy''s usefulness. He asserts that the Windsors have actually gained in political power under Elizabeth II, and puts all the naughty goings-on in a historical context. A riches-to-ruin saga as bizarre as any novel, THE RISE AND FALL OF THE HOUSE OF WINDSOR is by far the most intelligent--and most surprising--account of the catastrophe that the Royal Family have brought on themselves.

A proud old alley cat tells his life story to his grandson, including his adventures in a convent, in a feline commune, and with his hearer''s grandmother.

Winnie and Wolf is the story of the remarkable relationship between Winifred Wagner and Adolf Hitler that took place during the years between the two world wars, as seen through the eyes of the secretary at the Wagner House in Bayreuth. Winifred, an English girl, was brought up in an orphanage and married at the age of eighteen to the son of Germany''s most controversial genius. She is a passionate Germanophile, a Wagnerian dreamer, and a Teutonic patriot. In the debacle of the post-Versailles world, the Wagner family hopes for the coming of a Parsifal, a mystic idealist and redeemer. In 1923, they meet their Parsifal-a wild-eyed Viennese opera fanatic named Adolf Hitler. He has already made a name for himself in some sections of German society through rabble-rousing and street-corner speeches. It is Winifred, though, who truly believes in him. Both have known the humiliation of poverty and a deep anger at the society that excluded them. They find in each other an unusual kinship that begins with a passion for opera. In A. N. Wilson''s boldest and most ambitious novel yet, the world of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany is brilliantly recreated, and forms the backdrop to this incredible bond, which ultimately reveals the remarkable capacity of human beings to deceive themselves.

Oliver Gold, the brilliant, ascetic writer and philosopher, has lived quietly and happily for eight years on the outskirts of London as a lodger in 12 Wagner Rise. His sudden decision to marry and move to America precipitates a crisis in this household of women, all of whom owe fierce, idiosyncratic allegiance to Oliver and want to save him and their world from an unsuitable, inexplicable match. Yet in the end it is only Bobs, the twelve-year-old who is Oliver''s constant companion, who knows his dangerous secret: it is from her that Oliver attempts to flee. In a series of dramatic tableaux, unfolding over the course of many years, A. N. Wilson threads the dark labyrinths of Wagner Rise and illuminates the tragic consequences of these attachments. With this provocative novel about forbidden love, Wilson has produced a stunning, haunting literary work-a Lolita for our times. "A respectable, genuine, intellectual portrait of a pedophile that also makes for a gripper indeed. . . . Sex-tormented Oliver . . . in spite of all (and ''all'' includes plenty) remains believably human, thanks to the estimably gifted Wilson." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Wicked English wit . . . has the kind of sly humor where grimness itself becomes the joke." - The New Yorker "Well written and sensitively realized. . . . [Wilson] lets the characters'' fates unfold over the years and shows, touchingly, how the pain and self-deception at 12 Wagner Rise taints all their lives." - Philadelphia Inquirer

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.

Blending military, political, social, and cultural history of the most dramatic kind, distinguished historian 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.

Julian Ramsay, the chronicler of the distinguished Lampitt family, witnesses the effects of such events as pharmaceutical tycoon Virgil D. Everett''s murder and a Catholic scientist''s unwitting development of the Pill.

“For some reason, the very negative thoughts which she had during that interview with the rich-stockbroker woman in Kensington did not remain with her… She forgot that she despised the woman for not looking after her own children, and she forgot how much she envied and hated her for being rich enough to pay someone else to shovel her baby’s shit.”

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.

John Betjeman was by far the most popular poet of the twentieth century; his collected poems sold more than two million copies. As poet laureate of England, he became a national icon, but behind the public man were doubts and demons. The poet best known for writing hymns of praise to athletic middle-class girls on the tennis courts led a tempestuous emotional life. For much of his fifty-year marriage to Penelope Chetwode, the daughter of a field marshal, Betjeman had a relationship with Elizabeth Cavendish, the daughter of the Duke of Devonshire and lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret. Betjeman, a devout Anglican, was tormented by guilt about the storms this emotional triangle caused. Betjeman, published to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of the poet''s birth, is the first to use fully the vast archive of personal material relating to his private life, including literally hundreds of letters written by his wife about their life together and apart. Here too are chronicled his many friendships, ranging from "Bosie" Douglas to the young satirists of Private Eye, from the Mitford sisters to the Crazy Gang. This is a celebration of a much-loved poet, a brave campaigner for architecture at risk, and a highly popular public performer. Betjeman was the classic example of the melancholy clown, whose sadness found its perfect mood music in the hymns of a poignant Anglicanism.

The author in this new biography of Milton sees the man whole, and in doing so enhances our understanding not only of his character but also of his poetry.

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).

A tribute to the English writer and philosopher (1919-1999).

When Fanny Williams, a successful boutique owner, tries to buy an abandoned church to use as a warehouse, she learns that its architect was Oswald Fish, who has played an unsuspected role in her life

By the end of the nineteenth century, almost all the great writers, artists and intellectuals had abandoned Christianity, and many had abandoned belief in God altogether. A.N. Wilson demonstrates through such diverse lives as those of Gibbon, Kant, and Marx, the doubt about religion had many sources. By 1900 the Church was vastly rich and powerful, but was seen by many as spiritually empty, however full its pews might be of a Sunday. Echoes of the death of God could be heard everywhere; in the revolutionary politics of Garibaldi and Lenin; in the poetry of Tennyson, the plays of Shaw and the novels of Hardy; in the philosophy of Hegel and in the work of Freud; in the first stirrings of feminism. Wilson''s fascinating and challenging account shows how the decline of religious certainty in Victorian times had its origins with the eighteenth-century sceptics - but brought a devastating sense of emotional loss which extends to our own times.