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The last kingdom

Part of the The Last Kingdom Series series
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The first book in a brand new series, "The Last Kingdom" is set in England during the reign of King Alfred.

Uhtred is an English boy, born into the aristocracy of ninth-century Northumbria. Orphaned at ten, he is captured and adopted by a Dane and taught the Viking ways.

Yet Uhtred's fate is indissolubly bound up with Alfred, King of Wessex, who rules over the only English kingdom to survive the Danish assault.

The struggle between the English and the Danes and the strife between christianity and paganism is the background to Uhtred's growing up.

He is left uncertain of his loyalties but a slaughter in a winter dawn propels him to the English side and he will become a man just as the Danes launch their fiercest attack yet on Alfred's kingdom.

Marriage ties him further still to the West Saxon cause but when his wife and child vanish in the chaos of the Danish invasion, Uhtred is driven to face the greatest of the Viking chieftains in a battle beside the sea.

There, in the horror of the shield-wall, he discovers his true allegiance. "The Last Kingdom", like most of Bernard Cornwell's books, is firmly based on true history.It is the first novel of a series that will tell the tale of Alfred the Great and his descendants and of the enemies they faced, Viking warriors like Ivar the Boneless and his feared brother, Ubba.

Against their lives Bernard Cornwell has woven a story of divided loyalties, reluctant love and desperate heroism.

In Uhtred, he has created one of his most interesting and heroic characters and in "The Last Kingdom" one of his most powerful and passionate novels.

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Product Details
HarperCollins
000721801X / 9780007218011
Paperback / softback
823.914
20/03/2006
United Kingdom
English
Historic novels
[iii], 333 p. : map
20 cm
general Learn More
Reprint. Originally published: 2004.
/ Key title The first book in a brand new series, The Last Kingdom is set in England during the reign of King Alfred. / With his staggering Grail Quest, Warlord and Sharpe series Bernard Cornwell has cemented his position as a virtuoso of historical fiction / This new novel, of heroic deeds, bloody battles and the struggle to unite Britain in the face of a common enemy, will delight all his fans and recruit many new readers to his fantastic writing / Competition: Simon Scarrow, Wilbur Smith, Conn Iggulden
/ Key title The first book in a brand new series, The Last Kingdom is set in England during the reign of King Alfred. / With his staggering Grail Quest, Warlord and Sharpe series Bernard Cornwell has cemented his position as a virtuoso of historical fiction / This new novel, of heroic deeds, bloody battles and the struggle to unite Britain in the face of a common enemy, will delight all his fans and recruit many new readers to his fantastic writing / Competition: Simon Scarrow, Wilbur Smith, Conn Iggulden FV Historical fiction