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  • Published: 1 December 2011
  • ISBN: 9780307744913
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 624
  • RRP: $45.00

The Fifth Queen



Ford Madox Ford’s novel about the doomed Katharine Howard, fifth queen of Henry VIII, is a neglected masterpiece.

Kat Howard—intelligent, beautiful, naively outspoken, and passionately idealistic—catches the eye of Henry VIII and improbably becomes his fifth wife. A teenager who has grown up far from court, she is wholly unused to the corruption and intrigue that now surround her. It is a time of great upheaval, as unscrupulous courtiers maneuver for power while religious fanatics—both Protestant and Catholic—fight bitterly for their competing beliefs. Soon Katharine is drawn into a perilous showdown with Thomas Cromwell, the much-feared Lord Privy Seal, as her growing influence over the King begins to threaten too many powerful interests. Originally published in three parts (The Fifth Queen, Privy Seal, and The Fifth Queen Crowned), Ford’s novel serves up both a breathtakingly visual evocation of the Tudor world and a timeless portrayal of the insidious operations of power and fear in any era.

  • Published: 1 December 2011
  • ISBN: 9780307744913
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 624
  • RRP: $45.00

About the author

Ford Madox Ford

Ford Madox Ford was born on 17 December 1873 in Merton, Devon. He began writing in the 1890s and both his fiction and his criticism are celebrated. His most famous works are The Good Soldier (1915) and Parade's End (1924-8). His other major contribution to literature was the foundation of the English Review in 1908 and the Transatlantic Review in 1924. Ford changed his surname from Hueffer in 1919 after serving in the British army in France during the First World War. After 1927 Ford lived in the United States and France, and he died in Deauville on 26 June 1939.

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Praise for The Fifth Queen

"Ford's last Fifth Queen novel is amazing. The whole cycle is a noble conception." --Joseph Conrad
"The best historical romance of this century." --The Times Literary Supplement (London)