Fire From Heaven Mary Renault Epub 5: How a Young Prince Became a Legendary Conqueror

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Aug 16, 2023
1 min read

Rosemary Rowe, A Roman Ransom (2006), about a mosaic-maker in second century Roman Britain who is rousted from his sickbed to find a man's missing wife and baby son; #8 in the Libertus mystery series.

In the border between history and legend, historical novelists have taken up the challenge of defining who Arthur and the men and women around him may have been. Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset was the earliest and is still among the best portrayals of an Arthur figure in a realistic fifth century setting, and more recent novelists have followed her lead. Others have been inspired by the legend to create fantasy worlds which borrow, to a greater or lesser degree, from what we know of the history. In The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley reimagined the Arthurian legends from a pagan, feminist perspective. Though her novel includes many fantasy elements, it also incorporates ideas from early Welsh sources that show Arthur at odds with the Christian church. Her novel brought a new perspective to the King Arthur legend that reflects glimmers of what may have been a real controversy between Celtic pagans and Christians during the post-Roman period.