Always a keen student of history, Thomas B. Costain now combines the fruits of his years of research with his expert skill as a novelist to bring to this chronicle of history all the color, drama, and sheer humanness that are so largely missing from the usual versions and from history texts.
The story, first of the Costain histories which will form The Pageant of England, begins with the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066 and closes with the end of the reign of John in 1216, when the full merging of Norman and Saxon had taken place and the conquest was complete.
The conquerors themselves take form and substance under the skillful pen of the author; William the Conqueror, Henry I and his Good Queen Mold, Henry II, Thomas à Becket, John, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard Coeur de Lion, and the others all live again, love again, and fight for power. You will see also the strong and continuing fight for human rights as typified and brought into being by such farseeing and important documents as the Domesday Book, the Treaty of Wallingford, the Charter of Henry I, the Constitutions of Clarendon, and the Magna Charta.
Events involving the hopes and fears, successes and failures of the conquerors and conquered, the rulers and the ruled, are graphically presented in the atmosphere of their times, with a fine interpretation of human motives and a precise evaluation in the light of subsequent history. The action is so visually clear and real that many of the more dramatic sections unfold like scenes in a play.
The Conquerors is a book for those who love history, for those to whom the narrative of human progress is the most exciting of all stories, and for those who have always thrilled to Mr. Costain's graphic storytelling.
—from the dust jacket
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