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'An enjoyably pacey read.' Times Literary Supplement
'Eloquent... brilliant and very moving.' Paul Cartledge, Emeritus Professor of Greek culture, University of Cambridge
'On the morning of 6 October 1536, a frail scholar was taken from a dungeon in the castle at Vilvoorde, just north of Brussels. Armed guards kept the crowds at bay as he was led through the streets of the small town. He was to be burned. The funeral pyre, a wigwam stack of planks surmounted by a cross, was ready. Gunpowder would be thrown on the wood to encourage the flames. He was allowed a few moments of prayer. As a priest, prayer had been the keystone of his faith. After the brief pause, he walked up the steps to be tied to the cross. As he waited for the flames, he called out, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes!'
'This was William Tyndale, the man whose translation of the New Testament and much of the Old Testament was to bring about more profound changes to the English-speaking world over the next five centuries than the works of any other man in its history.'
From Chapter 1: Innocence and genius
Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg was born in Wigton, Cumbria, in 1939. He went to the local Grammar School and then to Wadham College, Oxford. He joined the BBC in 1961, and published his first novel, For Want of a Nail, in 1965.
He left the BBC and continued to write novels which include The Soldier's Return (WH Smith Literary Award), Without a City Wall (Mail on Sunday John Llewellyn Rhys Prize) and Now Is the Time (Parliamentary Book Award 2016). A Place in England, Son of War and Crossing the Lines were all nominated for the Booker Prize. His non-fiction includes The Adventure of English and The Book of Books, and his first memoir, Back in the Day, was published in 2022 to critical acclaim.
He edited and presented The South Bank Show from 1977 and hosted the BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Time from 1998. He has now retired from both. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society and of The British Academy. He was given a Peerage in 1998 and a Companion of Honour in 2017.
More by Melvyn Bragg
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