Matthew Kneale

It is 1857, and Reverend Geoffrey Wilson has departed England to prove the literal truth of the Bible....

Novelist and historian Kneale, a longtime resident of Rome, tells the story of the Eternal City - from the early Roman Republic through the Renaissance to Mussolini and the German occupation in World War Two - through pivotal moments that defined its history....

The Reverend Geoffrey Wilson sets out from England, in the summer of 1857, with an expedition to find the Garden of Eden, which he is convinced lies on the island of Tasmania....

What first prompted prehistoric man, sheltering in the shadows of deep caves, to call upon the realm of the spirits?....

No city on earth has preserved its past as has Rome. Visitors stand on bridges that were crossed by Julius Caesar and Cicero and walk around temples visited by Roman emperors....

Former cinema camera director Julius Sewell journeys across Europe with his family to his sister's wedding in Rome....

It is 1857, and Reverend Geoffrey Wilson has departed England to prove the literal truth of the Bible....

1289. A rich farmer fears he'll go to hell for cheating his neighbours. His wife wants pilgrim badges to sew into her hat and show off at church. A poor, ragged villager is convinced his beloved cat is suffering in the fires of purgatory and must be rescued....

A warm and affectionate portrait of a city and a people under lockdown during the Covid-19 crisis, from the award-winning and Sunday Times best-selling author of Rome: A History in Seven Sackings....

London, 1849. As a cholera epidemic draws nearer, Joshua Jeavons, engineer, is working on his great drain plan for the capital. When the deaths begin, he works even more furiously, driven by the vision of a reborn London freed of rotting sewers....