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A Gambling Man

Jenny Uglow

Charles II was thirty when he crossed the Channel in May, 1660. His Restoration was greeted with maypoles and bonfires, like spring after long years of Cromwell’s rule. But there was no going back, no way he could ‘restore’ the old and so began a decade of experiment, from the rise of science and credit to the shocking licence of the Court and the failed attempts at toleration of different beliefs. A Gambling Man is a portrait of Charles II, exploring his elusive nature through the lens of these ten vital years – and a portrait of a vibrant, violent, pulsing world, in which the risks the king took forged the fate of the nation, on the brink of the modern world.

First published:
2009
Published by:
Faber and Faber
Length:
Hardcover 580 pages

About the author

Jenny Uglow grew up in Cumbria and now lives in Canterbury. Her books include prize-winning biographies of Elizabeth Gaskell and William Hogarth. The Lunar Men, published in 2002, was described by Richard Holmes as 'an extraordinarily gripping account', while Nature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick, won the National Arts Writers Award for 2007 and A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration was shortlisted for the 2010 Samuel Johnson Prize. The Pinecone, published in 2012, tells the story of Romantic visionary Sarah Losh and was described as 'a quiet masterpiece'. Her book In These Times: Living in Britain through Napoleon's Wars, 1793-1815 was longlisted for the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. Jenny is Chair of the Council of the Royal Society of Literature.