'An unlikely hero has a master storyteller to tell his tale. The King and the Christmas Tree is a poignant Christmas treat.' Lucy Worsley, historian, broadcaster and authorEvery December, a huge Christmas tree arrives in Trafalgar Square. Bedecked in lights, it is a shimmering, festive beacon in the heart of London. But even more enchanting than the twinkling decorations and scented pine is the story behind the tree; a story of loyalty, friendship and resistance.On a cold evening in 1940, German U-boats made their way towards Oslo. It seemed inevitable that Norway, like so many other European nations, would soon submit to the Nazi regime. But the country's indomitable King Haakon VII refused to surrender. Making his escape through his country towards the safe haven of Britain, King Haakon became an icon of hope for his people. And so, over seventy years later, the tree in Trafalgar Square remains as an enduring gift of thanks from Norway to the people...

The third volume in Wilson’s “Lampitt Papers” sequence is just as engaging and entertaining as the first two (Incline Our Hearts and A Bottle in the Smoke). The entire work is proving to be a roman à fleuve of brilliant social and historical sweep--a high comedic romp through our times. This latest installment brings Julian Ramsay, now in his 40s, into the Sixties, when he’s still working as a radio actor and fearing himself a failure. Julian and his cousin Felicity share a house in London, where she works as a civil servant, having abandoned academic philosophy. Through a series of coincidences, they both fall under the spell of one Rice Robey, a latter-day mystic and Blakean visionary who once wrote some novels under the name “ Albion Pugh.”

Charles Dickens was a superb public performer, a great orator and one of the most famous of the Eminent Victorians. Slight of build, with a frenzied, hyper-energetic personality, Dickens looked much older than his fifty-eight years when he died - an occasion marked by a crowded funeral at Westminster Abbey, despite his waking wishes for a small affair. Experiencing the worst and best of life during the Victorian Age, Dickens was not merely the conduit through whom some of the most beloved characters in literature came into the world. He was one of them.Filled with the twists, pathos and unusual characters that sprang from this novelist's extraordinary imagination, The Mystery of Charles Dickens looks back from the legendary writer's death to recall the key events in his life. In doing so, A. N. Wilson seeks to understand Dickens' creative genius and enduring popularity. Following his life from cradle to grave, it becomes clear that Dickens's fiction drew from his...

It's a scary world out there, especially if you're a pet hamster who likes nothing better than snuggling into a cashmere sock with a pouch full of honey seeds. So when Furball escapes her cozy cage and goes gallivanting with a gang of cockney mice who call themselves the Mokes, it can only end in trouble. Suddenly this brave little hamster is dodging fearsome winged Fevvas in the garden, and smelly long-tailed Narks in the cellar. And she'll have to be very careful not to be caught out by poisonous Floor Food, lethal Sticky Traps, or the dreaded Ole Snapper. Meanwhile the Humans, (or 'Ooms', if you're a Moke) are on the hunt for their beloved pet. And while they're searching high and low for their beloved pet, they're also dealing with a serious mouse problem...

A radical reappraisal of Charles Darwin from the bestselling author of Victoria: A Life.With the publication of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin—hailed as the man who "discovered evolution"—was propelled into the pantheon of great scientific thinkers, alongside Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton. Eminent writer A. N. Wilson challenges this long-held assumption. Contextualizing Darwin and his ideas, he offers a groundbreaking critical look at this revered figure in modern science.In this beautifully written, deeply erudite portrait, Wilson argues that Darwin was not an original scientific thinker, but a ruthless and determined self-promoter who did not credit the many great sages whose ideas he advanced in his book. Furthermore, Wilson contends that religion and Darwinism have much more in common than it would seem, for the acceptance of Darwin's theory involves a pretty significant leap of faith.Armed with an extraordinary breadth of...

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...

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 comprehend 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 explores Dante's preoccupations with classical mythology, numerology and the great Christian philosophers which inform every line of the Comedy. Dante in Love also lays bare the enigma of the man who never wrote about the mother of his children, yet immortalized the mysterious Beatrice, whom he barely knew.

The moments in life of "knowing". On Bognor Beach, with Grandpa England, she had "known" that he, and Papa, and she, would carry something on, something given, something bigger than themselves. Lilibet: a carefree child, a lover of horses and dogs, devoted to her family. And the girl who would be Queen. A.N. Wilson, one of England's most beloved writers, imagines the Queen on the eve of her platinum jubilee. We watch as she discovers, at the tender age of ten, that she is heir to the throne. We witness her meet the dashing Prince Phillip of Greece, who she loved steadfastly from the age of fifteen, and see their friendship blossom into passionate love. Above all, we learn of her astonishing sense of vocation and public duty, which grew during the dark years of WWII and her father's subsequent years of ill health. By turns funny, tender and tragic, Lilibet: The Girl Who Would be Queen honours our beloved monarch and her...

A Bonfire of the Vanities for contemporary LondonFrom A. N. Wilson, 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 Daily Legion is a rag that peddles celebrity gossip and denounces asylum seekers. The secret is that its financial survival depends on the support of a brutal African government. Recklessly defending this corrupt dictatorship, the newspaper faces off against Father Vivyan Chell, an Anglican monk and missionary who is working to overthrow the corrupt regime. They wage a smear campaign against the priest. Freedom fighters join the battle. Violence escalates. Called "a big, broad, sweeping book, as disturbing as it is funny" by The Guardian, My Name Is Legion is a savage satire on the morality of...

Biographer and novelist A. N. Wilson, whose most recent work on the life of Queen Victoria was an enormous critical and commercial success, turns his clear eye to our own Queen, Elizabeth II, as she turns 90. In this unusual and vibrant examination of the life and times of Britain's most iconic living figure, Wilson considers the history of the monarchy, drawing a line between Victoria, the murder of the Romanovs, and the bloody history of Europe in the twentieth century, examining how and why the Royal Family has survived. He paints a vivid portrait of 'Lilibet' the woman, and of her reign, throughout which she has remained stalwart, unmoving, a trait some regard as dullness, but which Wilson argues is the key to her survival. He outlines the case for a Republic, arguing that this will almost certainly happen at some point after her reign is at an end, and probably begin in the Commonwealth. In part historical overview, but with a keen eye to the future, A. N. Wilson...

Leo Tolstoy(1828-1910) was born into one of the grand old families of Imperial Russia. The loss of both of his parents during childhood was the prelude to a series of incidents which made his life as highly coloured as any of his great works of fiction. Whether as a dissolute layabout in the gambling saloons and brothels of Moscow and St Petersburg, as an artillery officer in the Crimean War or as an enlightened landowner educating his peasants and working in the fields, he had abundant energy and was in all areas a giant. Yet he was full of paradoxes, most clearly seen in his tempestuous marriage to Sofya Behrs - one of the most closely documented and perhaps one of the most painful, human relationships in history.

"It's unlikely that a more intelligent, amusing and yet disturbing novel will appear this autumn." ScotsmanOn The Island, just as on many other islands, marriages are unhappy, people fall in love and the seasons pass. The town of Aberdeen is no different, until the earthquakes. These seismic ripples tear down houses, forge bonds, and shake the foundations of humanity and religion. And in the midst of it all, Nellie and Ingrid fall in love.In Aftershocks A. N. Wilson offers a portrait of nature, death and morality. Moved by the real losses of the Christchurch earthquake, this is an extraordinary novel about a community profoundly linked to the land it lives on."Witty, erudite and artful." Spectator

People, not abstract ideas, make history, and nowhere is this more revealed than in A. N. Wilson's superb portrait of the Victorians, in which hundreds of different lives have been pieced together to tell a story - one which is still unfinished in our own day. The 'global village' is a Victorian village and many of the ideas we take for granted, for good or ill, originated with these extraordinary, self-confident people. What really animated their spirit, and how did they remake the world in their view? In an entertaining and often dramatic narrative, A. N. Wilson shows us remarkable people in the very act of creating the Victorian age.