Power and Glory: Jacobean England and the Making of the King James Bible

Power and Glory: Jacobean England and the Making of the King James Bible
Adam Nicolson

A fascinating, lively account of the making of the King James Bible.James VI of Scotland – now James I of England – came into his new kingdom in 1603. Trained almost from birth to manage rival political factions, he was determined not only to hold his throne, but to avoid the strife caused by religious groups that was bedevilling most European countries. He would hold his God-appointed position and unify his kingdom. Out of these circumstances, and involving the very people who were engaged in the bitterest controversies, a book of extraordinary grace and lasting literary appeal was created: the King James Bible.47 scholars from Cambridge, Oxford and London translated the Bible, drawing from many previous versions, and created what many believe to be the greatest prose work ever written in English – the product of a culture in a peculiarly conflicted era. This was the England of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson and Bacon; but also of extremist Puritans, the Gunpowder plot, the Plague, of slum dwellings and crushing religious confines. Quite how this astonishing translation emerges is the central question of this book.Far more than Shakespeare, this Bible helped to create and shape the language. It is the origin of many of our most familiar phrases, and the foundations of the English-speaking world. It was a generous and deliberate decision to make the Bible available to the common man: not an immediate commercial success, but which later became a bestseller, and has remained one ever since.Adam Nicolson gives a fascinating and dramatic account of the early years of the first Stewart ruler, and the scholars who laboured for seven years to create the world's greatest book; immersing us in a world of ingratiating bishops, a fascinating monarch and London at a time unlike any other.

POWER AND GLORY

Jacobean Englandand the Making of the King James Bible

ADAM NICOLSON

COPYRIGHT (#ulink_fe94a4ef-2162-57fa-a7ea-8b1718017cc2)

HarperPress An imprint of HarperCollinsPublisbers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)

This edition published by Harper Perennial 2004

First published by HarperCollins Publishers 2003

Copyright © Adam Nicolson 2003

Portrait/Literature by Committee copyright © Sam Leith 2004

Adam Nicolson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007108947

Ebook Edition © JULY 2015 ISBN: 9780007380701 Version: 2016-12-07

PRAISE (#ulink_8920d2ab-a2c8-50a4-8ade-68eaa608a9aa)

‘This fascinating story is told with brilliance by Adam Nicolson.’

Glasgow Herald

‘An engaging and moving account … marvellous.’

Economist

‘Power and Glory … pays that Bible eloquent tribute, not least in its passionate homage to the power of language as, and in, history. His own words give us not only the rich history but a moving commemoration of the Bible that has so much shaped our utterances and lives.’

Independent

‘Nicolson’s portraits of Jacobean intellectuals, theologians, politicians and princes overlay the lasting achievement that underpins this book. His approach to personalities humanises the beauty and ceremony of the biblical prose that still transcends its makers.’

The Times

‘Conversational, witty and engaging. It is extraordinarily readable … Adam Nicolson gives us a swashbuckling and fastmoving account of the accession of King James I of England and VI of Scotland in 1603 … he catches the spirit of the age in his own literary style … There is power and glory here in spadefuls, and a great deal of kingdom too.’

The Tablet

‘One wouldn’t think an account of the translation of the Bible would prove an enthralling read, but Adam Nicolson’s narrative has a sweep of grandeur at which a brief review like this can only hint. This is history with masterly writing and a cast of bizarre characters. Highly recommended.’

Irish Examiner

‘It is a popular book as popular books used to be, a breeze rather than a scholarly sweat, but humanely erudite, elegantly written, passionately felt … Nicolson’s excitement is contagious.’

New Yorker

‘Nicolson shows us in captivating detail how the diverse translators of the King James Bible captured compelling debates that remain relevant to this day.’

Newsweek

‘A readable, immaculately researched book … The author has a clear understanding of the time, the issues involved and, above all, of the people who made the King James Bible. He could not have told his story more compellingly.’

Country Life

‘Adam Nicolson’s stunning history of the Authorised Version is really a prosopography, a study of the dynamic group of scholars who put together what some call the best book in the English language. Nicolson’s focus on the words these men left behind enables him to combine scholarship with a greater emotional sensitivity.’

Observer

‘Adam Nicolson’s book is unobtrusively learned, rich in curious and purposeful detail, an ideal balance between fervent enthusiasm and elegantly witty detachment. The story of the translation’s origins and production is a subject which, one always felt, would be nice to hear from a really sparkling and sharp guide. This volume strikes me as exactly that, a brilliantly entertaining, passionate, funny and instructive telling of an important and gripping story.’

PHILIP HENSHER, The Spectator

‘Adam Nicolson has a nose for quirks, follies and ironies … Nicolson fascinatingly demonstrates how these translators took the plain, sinewy prose of the fugitive martyr William Tyndale – written 80 years previously – and polished it to gem-like brightness, looking for words which would resonate with passion and ring sonorously amid the solemnity of worship … He has written a marvellous book: there are few more stylish or sensitive introductions than this to the personalities, the sights and the smells, as well as to the words, of Jacobean England.’

Sunday Telegraph

‘Nicolson really deserves at least an 18-gun salute. Power and Glory is a fine piece of history, ecclesiology and literature all rolled into one and, what’s more, like the Authorised Version itself, it sings.’

Guardian

‘This is an easygoing, companionable exploration of Elizabethan and Jacobean England … will delight the general reader, for whom it was written … Nicolson takes one back to the Bible with a fresh eye and ear, which is not easily done these days.’

New Statesman

‘The story of the seven years between commissioning and printing fascinates from start to finish. It is told in a way which combines scholarship and entertainment.’

Independent on Sunday

‘Vivid, exhilarating, consistently intelligent, you can almost taste the air breathed by these Jacobean heroes, who gave English its most famous book. History at its best.’