Review
"An excellent and highly readable translation [Hackett Publishing Company] coupled with helpful but not overwhelming notes. The inclusion of "The Sileni of Alcibiades" should prove valuable to the average student. The introduction covers a great deal of ground in only 34 pages and should prepare students well in survey courses. A great deal of value for only $6.95." -- Dan O'Bryan, Sierra Nevada College
"This [Hackett Publishing Company] edition of Utopia seems to me just right! The edition's introduction is brisk and intelligent and at the same time nicely calculated to reach an average student who, most likely, does not know any history or geography. The addition of the "Sileni of Alcibiades" is a stroke of genius. I shall be using your edition in preference to the . . . edition in my courses. The price is fair as well." -- George Huppert, University of Illinois at Chicago
"Wooton's edition of More's Utopia [Hackett Publishing Company] is quite simply the finest available." --Ted Stolze, Cal State Hayward --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Review
"Students who use this edition will gain a comprehensive understanding of the historical and literary contexts out of which Utopia emerged." --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Publishers Weekly
According to Ackroyd (Blake; Hawksmoor), More "embodied the old order of hierarchy and authority at the very moment when it began to collapse all around him." Symbolizing that collapse was Henry VIII's defiance of the pope in the "great matter" of his much-desired divorce of Catherine of Aragon. Refusing to compromise with the break from Rome, More willed his own death. He dies well in Ackroyd's narrative, but he does not live a life as saintly as he leaves it, piously amassing wealth and power, piously writing philosophical works as ambiguous as Utopia and as scatological as Responsio, piously harassing religious reformers and smugly condemning them to the stake. As a biographer of More (the first since 1984), Ackroyd is also an effective novelist. He evokes late-medieval London in sight and in smell; sends More on his workaholic schedule of legal, political, diplomatic and courtly activities; exploits familial and hagiographic anecdotes for their story values; and repeats unscholarly untruths (as Luther's cloacal epiphanies) because fiction can be more colorful than fact. Only Henry VIII in Ackroyd's large cast fails to be realized in the round, but the king, recognizing More's loyal services, does "graciously" reduce his sentence from disemboweling to beheading. After an awkward, conditional start ("But it might be more fruitful to recognise... "/ "...but it might be worth rehearsing certain of its aspects... "/ "It has in the past been noticed... "), Ackroyd's clotted language metamorphoses into elegant English, and the nobility of More's demise will move readers who persist to the end. 27 b&w illustrations not seen by PW. BOMC, History Book Club and QPB selections.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From the Inside Flap
Peter Ackroyd's The Life of Thomas More is a magnificent reconstruction of the life and imagination of one of the most remarkable figures of history. Thomas More was a renowned statesman, the author of a political fantasy that gave a name to a genre and a worldview (Utopia), and, most famously, a Catholic martyr, who paid with his life when he refused to follow his sovereign, King Henry VIII, in severing England's ties with the Catholic Church.
Born into the professional classes, Thomas More (1478-1535) rose by dint of formidable intellect and well-placed connections to become the most powerful man in England after the king. An exponent of what was called in his day "the mixed life," More combined medieval piety with worldly mastery of legal argument and the art of negotiation. Ackroyd dramatically shows how the clouds of Lutheran reformation that swarmed over the continent unleashed the storm of the early modern period that swept away More's world and took his life. He clarifies the whirl of dynastic, religious, and mercantile politics that brought the autocratic Henry VIII and the devout More into their fateful conflict. And he narrates the unrelenting drama of More's final days--his detention, trial, and execution--with a novelist's mastery of suspense.
In Ackroyd's hands, this renowned "man for all seasons" emerges in the fullness of his complex humanity; we see the unexpected side of his character (a preference for bawdy humor) as well as his indisputable moral courage. Acclaimed for his magisterial biographies (T. S. Eliot, Dickens, Blake), Peter Ackroyd has once again scored a triumph. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Review
Fluent and highly readable, this new version should be welcomed by all admirers of the Utopia.
-- "Louis Martz, Yale University "
Surprisingly apropos as civilization enters the twenty-first century...Through James Adams' skillful narration one envisions More standing at a lectern in historical garb. Adams' deep, measured tones lend weight to the utopian portrayal, as do his accurate pronunciations of the names of Greek philosophers. The disparity between More's world of harmony and balance and the real events of the last 500 years makes this work all the more relevant.
-- "AudioFile" --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From the Back Cover
First published in 1516, during a period of astonishing political and technological change, Sir Thomas More's utopia depicts an imaginary society free of private property, sexual discrimination and religious intolerance. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. About the Author
Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was also a councillor to Henry VIII, and Lord High Chancellor of England from October 1529 to 16 May 1532. More opposed the Protestant Reformation, in particular the theology of Martin Luther and William Tyndale. He also wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about the political system of an imaginary ideal island nation. More opposed the King's separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to acknowledge Henry as Supreme Head of the Church of England and the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. After refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, he was convicted of treason and beheaded. Ahead of his execution, he was reported saying his famous words: "I die the King's good servant, but God's first." --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
From Wayne A. Rebhorn’s Introduction to Utopia
Omnium horarum homo: a “man for all hours.” That’s what Desiderius Erasmus calls his friend Thomas More. The phrase appears in the letter that serves as the preface for Erasmus’s masterpiece, The Praise of Folly, and is also the source of Robert Bolt’s title for his play and movie about More, A Man for All Seasons. Bolt’s title transforms More into a secular saint, a model of individual integrity, a man “for all seasons”—that is, for all of history. Indeed, the French translated the title of Bolt’s film as Un Homme pour l’éternité, making More into “A Man for Eternity.” This is not, however, what Erasmus meant by the words he penned in 1511, long before More achieved martyrdom, suffering death rather than accept Henry VIII as the head of the Church. Erasmus is actually praising More for being able “to play the man for all hours with everyone.” More is an ideal figure, in other words, because he is adaptable, able to get along with all sorts of people in all sorts of situations and as circumstances change from hour to hour, what Erasmus means by “folly”—that is, a supreme versatility in living life in this world. The historical More certainly possessed such versatility, so that when Erasmus decided to praise “Folly,” or Moria in Greek, it is not surprising that the name of More, Morus in Latin, should have popped into his head not just as an appropriate dedicatee, but as someone who epitomized all the best meanings he attributed to folly in his work.
Erasmus’s compliment to More makes More into a player, someone who knows how “to play—or act—the man” (hominem agere) in every situation. Indeed, in his biography of More, almost the very first thing his son-in-law William Roper does is to praise More’s success at improvisational acting when he was still a young page in the household of the learned John Cardinal Morton: “Though he was young of years, yet would he at Christmastide suddenly sometimes step in among the players, and never studying for the matter, make a part of his own there presently among them, which made the lookers-on more sport than all the players beside.” Even a cursory review of More’s life and works reveals his ability to play many incredibly varied roles, some of which were even opposed to one another. For example, More was a faithful husband and devoted father, but also an ascetic who seriously considered entering a monastery. He was a learned humanist scholar and translator of the classics, but also a propagandist for the Tudor regime and a mud-slinging critic of Luther. More won cases as a clever lawyer and fought to preserve his economic, social, and political status, but he was also a deeply religious devotional writer who looked down on attachments to this world. An impartial and fair-minded negotiator, civil servant, and magistrate, he became an implacable opponent and persecutor of heretics; best known for his role as a lord chancellor who willingly implemented Henry’s policies and paid his royal master almost servile deference, he was also, at the end, a defender of his own conscience against monarchical tyranny. Finally, More stands on the world stage as an unfettered genius capable of imagining brave new worlds in his greatest literary and philosophical achievement, even though he was also an uncompromising defender of received traditions and of an ancient, long-established institution that was deeply opposed to change. Luther once said of Erasmus, complaining of the Dutch humanist’s mutability and contradictoriness, “Erasmus of Rotterdam, where will you stand fast?” He could almost have said the same thing about Thomas More.
More’s complexities and contradictions go to the heart of the Renaissance and the Reformation, the two great cultural upheavals England, like the rest of Europe, experienced in the early decades of the sixteenth century—and would continue to experience for many years after More’s death in 1535. In these two social transformations More played a key role both in what he did and in what he said or wrote. Nor was More merely an important English figure; he was also well known on the European continent, respected everywhere as a humanist writer and political thinker, and, finally, either admired as a martyr for the true faith or disparaged as a fool for not seeing the insufficiency of the Catholic Church.
More’s reputation in the last century has been equally complex and contradictory. The Catholic Church finally beatified him in 1886 and made him a saint in 1935, and many scholars and historians, some Catholic and some not, have admired his deep commitment to his religious faith. His Utopia has been celebrated by others for its relatively egalitarian social structure, its religious tolerance, and its economic system—a system in which all things are held in common and which thus seems to anticipate the ideals of socialism and communism. Indeed, Utopia was one of the first books authorized for translation into Russian after the Communist Revolution in 1917. By contrast, in Bolt’s 1960 A Man for All Seasons, More has turned into a secular saint who defends his “self,” not his “soul,” against tyrannical political authority. Finally, More has been attacked by others as a mediocre statesman and condemned for his servile relationship to Henry, a servility best seen in the exaggerated expressions of deference he made to the King, as recorded in Roper’s Life, while Protestant polemicists have objected to the largely popular press he has enjoyed and have stressed his persecution of heretics, instead.
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Amazon.com Review
The Life of Thomas More is Peter Ackroyd's biography--from baptism to beheading--of the lawyer who became a saint. More, a noted humanist whose friendship with Erasmus and authorship of Utopia earned him great fame in Europe, succeeded Cardinal Wolsey as Lord Chancellor of London at the time of the English Reformation. In 1535, More was martyred for his refusal to support Henry VIII's divorce and break with Rome. Ackroyd's biography is a masterpiece in several senses. Perhaps most importantly, he corrects the mistaken impression that Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons has given two generations of theater and film audiences: More was not, as Bolt's drama would have us believe, a civil disobedient who put his conscience above the law. Ackroyd explains that "conscience was not for More an individual matter." Instead, it was derived from "the laws of God and of reason." If the greatest justice in this book is analytic, however, its greatest joys are descriptive. Ackroyd brings 16th-century London to life for his readers--an exotic world where all of life is enveloped by the church: "As the young More made his way along the lanes and thoroughfares, there was the continual sound of bells." --Michael Joseph Gross --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From the Publisher
Founded in 1906 by J.M. Dent, the Everyman Library has always tried to make the best books ever written available to the greatest number of people at the lowest possible price. Unique editorial features that help Everyman Paperback Classics stand out from the crowd include: a leading scholar or literary critic's introduction to the text, a biography of the author, a chronology of her or his life and times, a historical selection of criticism, and a concise plot summary. All books published since 1993 have also been completely restyled: all type has been reset, to offer a clarity and ease of reading unique among editions of the classics; a vibrant, full-color cover design now complements these great texts with beautiful contemporary works of art. But the best feature must be Everyman's uniquely low price. Each Everyman title offers these extensive materials at a price that competes with the most inexpensive editions on the market-but Everyman Paperbacks have durable binding, quality paper, and the highest editorial and scholarly standards. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Library Journal
Prizewinning biographer/novelist Ackroyd reconstructs the life of Henry VIII's famed adversary.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. The Catholic Church made Thomas More a saint. Ackroyd makes him a man--with all the paradoxes, ironies, and complexities that mortality entails. Not that he impugns More's faith. Far from it. By showing that More was no angel but fully human--tempted by sexual pleasure, amused by earthy jests, moved by political ambitions, and prey to common fears--Ackroyd makes the miracle of More's martyrdom all the more incandescent. Ackroyd unfolds the fabric of More's life, from baptism to beheading, as a Renaissance tapestry, richly colored, intricately woven. First, we see the strictly hierarchal London society into which More was born, close enough to the seats of power to hope for high appointment yet not wholly separated from the thieves, charlatans, and whores he came to know well through his work with the sheriff's court. Nearer the center of the tapestry we see the humanist scholar Erasmus, with whom More shared an enthusiasm for the New Learning; the Protestant iconoclast Martin Luther, against whom More hurled the fiercest invectives; the comic dramatist John Heywood, in whose facetious mirth More delighted; the adroit Cardinal Wolsey, whose fall from grace brought More to office as the lord chancellor; and, finally, the imperious monarch Henry VIII, to whom More pledged everything--except his soul. And it is between Henry and More that Ackroyd slowly tightens the threads of an unequal tug-of-war, as Henry demands and More refuses to give complete submission to the king as the head of a new national church that will grant an expedient divorce. In the harrowing denouement in which More kisses and blesses his executioner, even the jaded cynic will glimpse something rare. An indispensable acquisition for any library. Bryce Christensen --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Kirkus Reviews
A vividly evocative portrait of the lawyer and statesman who was ``the King's good servant, but God's first,'' from award- winning biographer and novelist Ackroyd (Blake, 1996; T.S. Eliot, 1984; etc.) Thomas More was born in 1479 in Milk Street, in what is now the center of Londons financial district, to Agnes and John More, a tradesman-turned-lawyer. Thomas would be one of the great intellects of his time, and Ackroyd gives particular attention to young More's rare and prolonged education: his apprenticeship at the court of the learned Archbishop and Chancellor John Morton of Canterbury, his grounding in the liberal arts at Oxford University, and his legal education at New Inn and Lincoln's Inn. More's upbringing and education, Ackroyd shows, left their permanent imprint upon him: His extensive training in dialectical logic served him well at the bar and on the bench, his time with Archbishop Morton made him familiar with the world of prelates and statecraft, and his Latin and literary training fitted him for his career as a humanist. Ackroyd vibrantly evokes the devout London in which More lived, where even successful lawyers meditated on life's transience and participated in endless rounds of prayer and ritual. He also gives an intimate picture of More's affectionate relations with his family and tells the familiar story of More's rise to favor in the court of Henry VIII, his friendship with Erasmus, his tenure as lord chancellor, and his fall from grace as the crisis of the king's divorce of Catherine of Aragon worsened. Ultimately, More's constancy to his church outweighed his obeisance to the king: Ackroyd gives what amounts to a transcript of the trial in which More refused to endorse Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn, and narrates his imprisonment in the Tower of London and execution in 1535. A limpidly written and superbly wrought portrait of a complex hero who was truly, as his friend Erasmus stated, ``omnium horarum homo''a ``man for all seasons.'' (8 pages color, 8 pages black-and-white illustrations) (Book-of-the-Month Club/Quality Paperback Book Club/ History Book Club selection) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. The esteemed Ackroyd is both novelist (CHATTERTON, THE TRIAL OF ELIZABETH CREE) and literary biographer (of Blake and T.S. Eliot); but those expecting a dramatic retelling of THE MAN FOR ALL SEASONS will need to bide their time here. Before reaching the famous clash between More and Henry VIII, Ackroyd first places More in the rich context of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. This "Life and Times," as it would more accurately be titled, was written for the general reader, but not for one whose primary interest is Tudor matrimonial politics. Davidson's donnish reading accentuates Ackroyd's erudition and dry wit, but also serves to convey the underlying tension between intellectual ferment and abiding tradition that is the true drama in this story. D.A.W. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. 
