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Start giftingRestoration
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Learn moreFrom Rose Tremain comes the Booker Prize short-listed novel that "restored the historical novel to its rightful place of honor" (New York Times).
Robert Merivel, son of a glove maker and an aspiring physician, finds his fortunes transformed when he is given a position at the court of King Charles II. Merivel slips easily into a life of luxury and idleness, enthusiastically enjoying the women and wine of the vibrant Restoration age. But when he's called on to serve the king in an unusual role, he transgresses the one law he is forbidden to break and is brutally cast out from his newfound paradise. Thus begins Merivel's journey to self-knowledge, which will take him down into the lowest depths of seventeenth-century society.
Rose Tremain’s bestselling novels have won many awards, including the Orange Prize, the Whitbread Novel of the Year, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Prix Femina Étranger. Restoration, the first of her novels to feature Robert Merivel, was short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1989 and made into a film in 1995. She lives in Norfolk and London with her husband, biographer Richard Holmes.
Paul Daneman (1925–2001) was an accomplished actor both on stage and on screen. He acted with the Bristol Old Vic Theatre Company and the Arts Theatre, and his long list television credits include The Adventures of Robin Hood, Persuasion, and Out of the Unknown. He also worked with BBC Radio, voicing Bilbo Baggins in the dramatization of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, among other roles.
Reviews
“Merivel embodies the contradictions of his era: though he is vain, frivolous, and cynical, he is also a man of sensibility, intelligence, and imaginative daring; his wry, witty voice holds the reader absorbed. A thoroughly satisfying read, the complex plot is augmented by acutely observed historical detail, nuanced character development, humor, and poignancy.”
“A beautifully crafted work in which almost every event and character, as well as the narrator’s relationship with the reader, richly illuminate Merivel’s life and temperament. Exquisite balance and symmetry as well as passages of lyrical description are certain to please discriminating readers.”
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