[SJ6]⋙ Libro Death Duel A Novel of John Donne Gary O'Connor 9781530941353 Books

Death Duel A Novel of John Donne Gary O'Connor 9781530941353 Books

Download As PDF : Death Duel A Novel of John Donne Gary O'Connor 9781530941353 Books

1586

Fear and distrust are eating out the heart of Elizabethan England.

Around half of the people in England were reckoned to be Catholics but they are being hunted down and persecuted, and any who are seen to be harbouring them are put to the death.

To tap the priests who tried to minister to them – or to the noble families who were their figureheads – an army of spies, blackmailers, informers and law enforcers has been enlisted.

John Donne, the famous love poet, and later Dean of St Paul’s is torn between damning his soul and renouncing his Catholic heritage, or damning his body by going against his Queen and country, and failing to practice the Protestant faith.

In the intense ‘witch-hunt’ which follows, he becomes black-listed as someone to watch out for.

After being set upon by a young man convinced he is a Catholic rebel, Donne is forced into a duel. And to his dismay, he kills his Scottish rival.

Donne doesn’t know which way to turn and soon he is pursued by unknown forces who want justice for the crime he has committed.

Things are complicated further by the machinations of his mistress, the cold-hearted yet tantalizing Kate Ferrars, who tempts him to a fate worse than self destruction.

As the tortured poet wriggles this way and that to escape his mysterious fate, a series of mounting climaxes brings this authentic and majestic tale to a fitting and macabre end …

Based on meticulous research by an acclaimed biographer of Shakespeare, this is a knife-edged, psychological thriller of Elizabethan England. In best macabre style of that glorious period it is packed with tormentors and victims, and not least a portrait of Richard Topcliffe the most evil man in England, the scourge of Papists and the Queen’s torturer.

Garry O’Connor was a former director at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He became a writer and a theatre critic, and wrote several books including William Shakespeare A Popular Life, Darlings of the Gods A Year in the Life of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh and The Pursuit of Perfection The Life of Maggie Teyte.

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