pickA slow burn that is worth persevering with because it is both heartbreaking and beautiful. It is based on real events - a part of history that I knew nothing about- the kidnap of over 400 people from Iceland by barbery pirates. The FMC was a real woman, with a real story that has been fictionalised, but there are so many historical facts, that this is a powerful story ❣️
Wait, what?!! John Milton visited Galileo in Florence in 1638!? And this is referenced in Paradise Lost! I can't believe I'm only just finding out! 🤯🤦🏻♀️
https://www.theflorentine.net/2017/12/04/john-milton-florence-italy/
The illustrations in the book are genius.
... tales of bluff Norfolk farmers baffled by religious change, of drunken evenings in provincial inns and oak-panelled parlours, of saucy Norwich prostitutes and dour Dutch drainage engineers, of Cuckold the Calthorpes‘ dog and Wiggett the Hunstanton Hall fool, and of the many misadventures of Mr Prick, the unfortunately named minister of Denham. [The book]... enclosed one family‘s capacity for laughter even in the most serious times.
Royalists were lampooned for thirsting for rewards and court positions (dreaming of being ‘mounted on horseback with golden Sausedges about their Necks‘)...
Print got there first. Seems oddly topical given the events in (some parts of) the UK this week.
I can‘t resist an early novel especially not one written by a French woman!
They had fought and fasted, prayed and toiled for liberty, and even executed the King, but 'now the common enemy is gone, you are all like men in a mist, seeking for freedom and know not where, nor what it is'
(After the Parliamentary forces defeated the King in the English civil war)
so-so