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Thomas More

A Life and Death in Tudor England

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Thomas More

By: Joanne Paul
Narrated by: Ben Miles
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Discover a story 400 years in the making - the definitive biography of the man who dominated England in the first half of the sixteenth century

Born into the English Wars of the Roses, educated in the European Renaissance, enthralled by the Age of Exploration and ultimately destroyed by Henry VIII, Thomas More is one of the most famous - or notorious - figures in English history.

Is he a saintly scholar, the visionary author of Utopia and an inspiration for statesmen, socialists and intellectuals even today?

Or is he the stubborn zealot famously portrayed in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall?

Thomas More: A Life is the definitive biography of this hypnotic, flawed figure. Overturning many received interpretations of the sixteenth century, Joanne Paul shows Thomas More to have been an intellectual and political giant of his age, central to the making of modern Europe. Based on new archival discoveries and drawing on more than a decade's research into More's life and work, this is a richly-told story of family, faith and politics, and a compelling portrait of a man who, more than four hundred years after his death, remains the most brilliant mind of the Renaissance.

© Joanne Paul 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

 Christianity Europe Great Britain Historical Philosophers Professionals & Academics England Middle Ages Royalty Renaissance

Critic Reviews

To show us More as other than saint or villain, [Paul's] readable biography immerses us in More's busy, messy and changing world ... engrossing
Fans of The House of Dudley – and , indeed , of Wolf Hall and A Man for All Seasons - will find much to enjoy in this immersive , richly told account of life , death , faith and politics at the early Tudor court

Wonderful, riveting, subtle. Captures beautifully the life of More and the fading world he died to preserve.
Paul skilfully conveys the stakes, achieving balance between expertise and style
Paul is brilliant at bringing the swirl of Catholic England to life: its candlelit rituals, Latin prayers and saints’ days, punctuated by tinkling royal processions (Alice Hunt)
Significant. Goes further than most in seeking the essentials of the 'historical' More. Paul is terrific at evoking the sights and spaces of early 16th-century London, along with the forms and feel of clothing and objects. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, much to admire and enjoy
THE definitive biography of one of history’s most complex and often inscrutable characters (NATHEN AMIN, author of Son of Prophesy: The Rise of Henry Tudor)
Joanne Paul has created a portrait of Thomas More that is epic, intimate and profoundly relatable to the modern reader. In Paul’s hands he is neither overly good nor bad; he just is. We are in a new age of tyrants – Thomas More shows the necessity of speaking truth to power at all costs (LEAH REDMOND CHANG, Women’s Prize longlisted historian of Young Queens)
Forget […] Hilary Mantel’s caricatures. In this excellent study, Thomas More is reborn as a complex, absorbing man
Very impressive (ALISON WEIR)
A work of proper scholarly history as well as a wonderful narrative read...Joanne Paul goes back to the words More wrote himself, to try and get at More before fame and the accusations against him took hold. I so enjoyed the result (SUSANNAH LIPSCOMB)
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