God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible

Product Description

[This is the Audiobook CD Library Edition in vinyl case.]

A net of complex currents flowed across Jacobean England. This was the England of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Bacon; the Gunpowder Plot; the worst outbreak of the plague England had ever seen; arcadian landscapes; murderous, toxic slums; and, above all, sometimes overwhelming religious passion. Jacobean England was both more godly and less godly than it had ever been, and the entire culture was drawn taut between the polarities.

This was the world that created the King James Bible. It is the greatest work of English prose ever written, and it is no coincidence that the translation was made at the moment ''Englishness'' and the English language had come into its first passionate maturity. Boisterous, elegant, subtle, majestic, finely nuanced, sonorous, and musical, the English of Jacobean England has a more encompassing idea of its own reach and scope than any before or since. It is a form of the language that drips with potency and sensitivity. The age, with all its conflicts, explains the book.

The sponsor and guide of the whole Bible project was the king himself, the brilliant, ugly, and profoundly peace-loving James the Sixth of Scotland and First of England. Trained almost from birth to manage the rivalries of political factions at home, James saw in England the chance for a sort of irenic Eden over which the new translation of the Bible was to preside. It was to be a Bible for everyone, and as God's lieutenant on earth, he would use it to unify his kingdom. The dream of Jacobean peace, guaranteed by an elision of royal power and divine glory, lies behind a Bible of extraordinary grace and everlasting literary power.

Review

''This scrupulously elegant account of the creation of what four centuries of history has confirmed is the finest English-language work of all time is entirely true to its subject: Adam Nicolson's lapidary prose is masterly, his measured account both as readable as the curious demand and as dignified as the story deserves.'' --Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author

''A marvelous book: there are few more stylish or sensitive introductions than this to the personalities, the sights and the smells, as well as the words of Jacobean England.'' --Sunday Telegraph (London)

''Unobtrusively learned, rich in curious and purposeful detail, an ideal balance between fervent enthusiasm and elegantly witty detachment . . . A brilliantly entertaining, passionate, funny, and instructive telling of an important and gripping story . . . Adam Nicolson has written a thrilling and constantly absorbing book.'' --Spectator

''Nicolson tells the KJV s story so well that his book may prove to be the KJV's indispensable companion for years to come.'' --Booklist (starred review)

''Nicolson deftly chronicles the personalities involved and breezily narrates the political and religious struggles of the early seventeenth century . . . Nicolson succeeds at providing insight into the diverse personalities involved in making the King James Bible.'' --Publishers Weekly

About the Author

ADAM NICOLSON is the author of Seamanship, God's Secretaries, and Seize the Fire. He has won both the Somerset Maugham and William Heinemann awards, and he lives with his family at Sissinghurst Castle in England.