A. N. Wilson

A magisterial, colorful narrative illuminating the central tragedy of the nineteenth century: that God (or man's faith in him) died, but the need to worship remained as a torment to those who thought they had buried Him. By the end of the nineteenth century, almost all the great writers, artists, and intellectuals had abandoned Christianity, and many abandoned belief in God altogether. This was partly the result of scientific discovery, particularly the work of Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species. (No reader here will soon forget the venomous Oxford debate between Thomas Huxley, brilliant defender of Darwin, and Bishop Wilberforce in 1860.) But as Wilson demonstrates in such fascinatingly diverse lives as those of Gibbon, Kant, Marx, Carlyle, George Eliot, and Sigmund Freud, the doubt about religion had many sources. By 1900, the Church of England, so vastly rich, so politically and socially powerful, could be pronounced spiritually empty, however full its pews might be on a Sunday. Echoes of the "Death of God" could be found practically everywhere: in the revolutionary politics of Garibaldi and Lenin; in the poetry of Tennyson and the novels of Hardy; in the work of Freud, connecting this "death" to our deepest wishes; and in the decline of hierarchical (male) authority and the first stirrings of feminism. Wilson's exquisitely detailed argument reveals the growth of a new imaginative order of unbelief that supplanted organized religion, and left in its wake a devastating sense of loss extending to our own times.

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 take place over the next 50 years, in Britain and around the world. In Our Times, A. N. Wilson takes the reader on an exhilarating journey from that day to this. With his acute eye not just for the broad social and cultural sweep but also for the telling detail, he brilliantly distils 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, The Beatles to Princess Diana, the miners' strike to the Cold War. Here are the Angry Young Men, the satirists of Beyond the Fringe, Ruth Ellis and the abolition of hanging, 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 will propel you from post-war austerity - an age of deference in which men wore hats and women wore gloves - through the alterations in our social landscape to the multi-cultural Britain of today. Despite the appalling tyrannies that have taken place in the world, Wilson argues that in the last fifty years Britain has known a period of prosperity and peace without precedent in its history. With Our Times, A. N. Wilson triumphantly concludes the acclaimed trilogy which includes The Victorians and After the Victorians. It makes compelling reading for anyone interested in the forces that have shaped our world.

The Jesus of Faith and the Jesus of History are two different beings, with two different stories. Wilson reappraises our readings of the Gospels and, with extraordinary insight and clarity, reinterprets the story of Jesus's birth, his life as a carpenter and the dramatic events surrounding his arrest and trial.

Jesus was no Christian, and his friends made no effort to break away from Jesus's religion, Judaism.

A celebration of the life of Queen Elizabeth II, showing us that the Queen's qualities of duty, self-sacrifice and love of country were present in her from an early age.'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 reflecting on her early life. 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. Honouring the life of Her Majesty the Queen and her illustrious reign, Lilibet: The Girl Who Would be Queen is by turns funny, tender and heartfelt.'Superb... captures our Queen better than any biography' - Sunday Telegraph'It's packed with detail and conversations that bring to life all those who have been most important to her.' - Daily Mail

Winner of the Plutarch Award for Best BiographyA lively and insightful biographical celebration of the imaginative genius of Charles Dickens, published in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of his death. 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, he 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 life--a fact he acknowledged. Like Oliver Twist, Dickens suffered a wretched childhood, then grew up to become not only a respectable gentleman but an artist of prodigious popularity. Dickens knew firsthand the poverty and pain his characters endured, including the scandal of a failed marriage. Going beyond standard narrative biography, A. N. Wilson brilliantly revisits the wellspring of Dickens's vast and wild imagination, to reveal at long last why his novels captured the hearts of nineteenth century readers--and why they continue to resonate today. The Mystery of Charles Dickens is illustrated with 30 black-and-white images.

Tron på en styrande, övergripande, himmelsk princip har följt människan genom historien. Mer än 80 procent av världens befolkning har idag en religiös tillhörighet och även i sekulära stater fortsätter religionen att spela en viktig roll. Det går inte att förstå politik och internationella relationer idag utan att inkludera religionen som en aspekt av det kulturella sammanhanget. Essäerna i denna antologi, som härrör från Engelsbergsseminariet 2014, spänner över en mångfald ämnen i dagens såväl som gårdagens samhällen. De utforskar religionen i relation till människans villkor och skildrar hur den manifesterar sig i individens egna upplevelser. För att förstå oss själva behöver vi också förstå religionen.

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 knowledge, Wilson explores how Darwin and his theory were very much a product of their place and time. The "Survival of the Fittest" was really the Survival of Middle Class families like the Darwins--members of a relatively new economic strata who benefited from the rising Industrial Revolution at the expense of the working classes. Following Darwin's theory, the wretched state of the poor was an outcome of nature, not the greed and neglect of the moneyed classes. In a paradigm-shifting conclusion, Wilson suggests that it remains to be seen, as this class dies out, whether the Darwinian idea will survive, or whether it, like other Victorian fads, will become a footnote in our intellectual history. Brilliant, daring, and ambitious, Charles Darwin explores this legendary man as never before, and challenges us to reconsider our understanding of both Darwin and modern science itself.

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.

Brought to life by celebrated author and animal lover A. N. Wilson, and charmingly illustrated, Hazel will capture the hearts of guinea-pig lovers everywhere. Creep under the kitchen table and join Hazel the greedy guinea pig as she gets into some sticky situations... Hazel the guinea pig just wants to explore. But she's also very fond of food... When her seven-year-old owner puts her down into the kitchen, she seizes her chance to escape - but her bulging tummy gets her stuck in a wellington boot! That's just the beginning of Hazel's adventures. She's about to meet Tobacco, a handsome boy guinea pig, and together they must fight off a hutch invasion from a curious furball called Fudge. Can Hazel and Tobacco warn the humans in time - using just the power of squealing?

Hazel the guinea pig just wants to explore. But she's also very fond of food... When her seven-year-old owner puts her down into the kitchen, she seizes her chance to escape - but her bulging tummy gets her stuck in a wellington boot! That's just the beginning of Hazel's adventures. She's about to meet Tobacco, a handsome boy guinea pig, and together they must fight off a hutch invasion from a curious furball called Fudge. Can Hazel and Tobacco warn the humans in time - using just the power of squealing? Brought to life by celebrated author and animal lover A. N. Wilson, and charmingly illustrated by Jonathan Heale, Hazel will capture the hearts of guinea-pig lovers everywhere.

John Henry Newman is recognized as one of the greatest Christian thinkers of the modern age. He was also a man of prayer and deep spirituality. A. N. Wilson's wide-ranging anthology of Newman's prayers, poems and meditations will appeal to all those who are fascinated by this inspirational man. The readings cover the general themes of faith, prayer, the contemplation of Christ, discipleship, the meaning of holiness, and the hope of heaven. In an engaging Introduction, Wilson brings fresh insight to Newman's life and thought. This carefully arranged anthology will provide comfort and sustenance to all those who cherish Newman's writings and to those who are keen to discover one of our best loved spiritual writers for the first time.

There is something rather disquieting about Sallie Declan, a young American in London, and it is not just her obsession with Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, the subject of her PhD thesis. But a progressively darker reality unfolds as we are led inexorably towards a terrible and shocking climax.

Fifteen years ago, Iris Murdoch asked A. This is not Iris Murdoch the Alzheimer's patient, but Iris Murdoch the witty conversationalist, the emotional chaotic and, above all, the writer.

People, not abstract ideas, make history and in this volume A. N. Wilson has pieced together hundreds of different lives to tell a story - one that is still unfinished in our own day. Here are the poor and obscure as well as the lofty and famous - each in the very act of creating the Victorian age.

Wilson's subtle, entertaining and frequently provocative critical biography looks back through the indifference which has surrounded Walter Scott in recent times, and the distortions of his Victorian idolaters, to recapture the freshness of Scott as he appeared to his contemporaries.

A. N. Wilson's sympathetic, readable and brilliantly analytical narrative places John Milton, the greatest poet of the seventeenth century, in the context of his political and religious ideas.

An aging man is watching Shakespeare on television in the setting of a modest suburban house. Do not be deceived by the simplicity of such an image. For the man is Julian Ramsay, biographer of the literary Lampitt dynasty, and the famous black actress playing Margaret of Anjou was once, perhaps, the love of his life. Julian's mind wanders to a night that began with making love to the young and gorgeous Dodie and ended in the small hours of the morning outside the flat where James Petworth Lampitt lived and died. This is the story of that one evening, in the course of which Julian journeys from London's high society to its low life, meets many characters from his past, revisits memories, and, at last, unravels the mysteries of the two violent deaths that dominate the Lampitt Chronicles. From the joys of acting to the pangs of unrequited love, from a reunion of aging Fascists in London to a wintry romantic interlude in Venice, the plot of A. N. Wilson's tour de force leads the reader with consummate skill towards a wholly unexpected conclusion.

"A wide-ranging and richly stimulating inquiry into what the Bible is, what it means, how it works, and how hopelessly wrong the plodding fundamentalists of both atheist and religious persuasions are about it."--Sunday Times (London)

'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 warships 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 of Britain. In The King and the Christmas Tree historian A. N. Wilson artfully weaves together this tale of courage and friendship between nations. Richly illustrated and beautifully told, it is a delightful Christmas cracker for everyone, young and old alike.