Promotional Information

'Ackroyd has come up with an almost seamless work, one which earns its place on the same shelf as the best of his literary fantasies' - Guardian

About the Author

Peter Ackroyd is an award-winning historian, biographer, novelist, poet and broadcaster. He is the author of the acclaimed non-fiction bestsellers London: The Biography, Thames: Sacred River and London Under; biographies of figures including Charles Dickens, William Blake, Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock; and a multi-volume history of England. He has won the Whitbread Biography Award, the Royal Society of Literature's William Heinemann Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award and the South Bank Prize for Literature. He holds a CBE for services to literature.

Reviews

More concise and sardonic than Hawksmoor and Chatterton, and even more mysteriously brilliant, Milton in America fills the reader's mind with images of extraordinary vividness
*The Times*

A strikingly clever premise for a novel... Ackroyd's prose fizzes and sparkles as brightly as an electrical misconnection
*Independent*

Consistently funny. Ackroyd's comic genius... is allowed to let rip, with wonderfully enjoyable gusto
*Literary Review*

A startlingly good novel... authentically tragic and unforgettable
*Daily Telegraph*

Suppose that instead of returning his attention to the crafting of poetry upon the restoration of Charles II in 1660, John Milton had fled to New England with the idea of creating his own earthly paradise. Suppose, too, that you are among those who see Milton as a strict Puritan and domestic tyrant‘a man whose sensuousness T.S. Eliot once claimed was "withered by book learning" and his blindness. Then suppose that you are an author with a reputation as an imaginative, witty storyteller (e.g., The Trial of Elizabeth Cree, LJ 5/15/95). Given such circumstances, you might very well create a novel as compelling and as entertaining as this one. Exuding moral rectitude and self-importance, Ackroyd's Milton becomes an even greater despot than the kings he professes so fervently to despise. As a result, his companions in the wilderness are forced to pay a fearful price. This tale of the dangers of self-righteous pomposity and bigotry is adroitly and wittily crafted (you have to love characters like Humility Tilly and Outspoken Mather‘even if your not familiar with Colonial history) and carries with it an important message. Highly recommended for all libraries.‘David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersberg, Fla.

More concise and sardonic than Hawksmoor and Chatterton, and even more mysteriously brilliant, Milton in America fills the reader's mind with images of extraordinary vividness -- John Bayley * The Times *
A strikingly clever premise for a novel... Ackroyd's prose fizzes and sparkles as brightly as an electrical misconnection -- Lucy Hughes-Hallett * Independent *
Consistently funny. Ackroyd's comic genius... is allowed to let rip, with wonderfully enjoyable gusto -- A.N.Wilson * Literary Review *
A startlingly good novel... authentically tragic and unforgettable -- Victoria Glendinning * Daily Telegraph *