By Jeffers Lennox
I can trace my interest in the past to a single book: Jack Whyte’s The Skystone, a story set in the time of the legendary King Arthur. First published in 1992, when I was 12, The Skystone had just about everything necessary to hook a young kid: historical imagination, magic, war, heroism, and enough “adult” subject matter to make this my childhood version of 50 Shades of Grey. My dad gave me the book – a fact I desperately tried to forget while reading some of the more erotic passages – and he continued providing me with whatever Whyte wrote until I was sick of stories about King Arthur and the Knights.
Fast-forward twenty years, and I’m once again reading historical fiction. Both my father and my father-in-law suggested Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker prize-winning Wolf Hall, the story of Tudor England told through the fictionalized life of Thomas Cromwell. I haven’t read fiction for years, but thought I’d give it a try; once again, I find myself hooked. And I’m obviously not the only one. The success of Wolf Hall has led me to wonder if this is someone else’s The Skystone, and what future academic work might be traced back to a few evenings spent with Thomas Cromwell? I found myself particularly interested in Henry VIII and his court during a recent trip to England and France. While I was wandering Versailles I was struck by the fact that Louis XIII’s hunting chateau (which served as the foundation for the great palace) was constructed over eighty years after Thomas Cromwell lost his head. Continue reading
By Nathan Smith
