Henry V

The Astonishing Rise of England's Greatest Warrior King

Dan Jones

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Paperback

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English

Head of Zeus
03 September 2024

Biography: historical, political & military; History

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A brand-new life of England’s greatest king from our bestselling medieval historian

'A historian who writes as addictively as any page-turning novelist.' Observer

HENRY V reigned over England for only nine years and four months, and died at the age of just thirty-five, but he looms over the landscape of the late Middle Ages and beyond.

The victor of Agincourt was remembered as the acme of kingship, a model to be closely imitated by his successors. William Shakespeare deployed Henry V as a study in youthful folly redirected to sober statesmanship. In the dark days of World War II, Henry’s victories in France were presented by British filmmakers as exemplars for a people existentially threatened by Nazism. Churchill called Henry ‘a gleam of splendour in the dark, troubled story of medieval England’, while for one modern medievalist, Henry was, quite simply, ‘the greatest man who ever ruled England’.

For Dan Jones, Henry is one of the most intriguing characters in all medieval history, but one of the hardest to pin down: a hardened warrior, yet also bookish and artistic; a leader who made many mistakes, yet always triumphed when it mattered. As king, he saved a shattered country from economic ruin, and in foreign diplomacy made England a serious player once more. Yet through his conquests in northern France, he sowed the seeds for calamity at home, in the form of the Wars of the Roses.

Dan Jones’s life of Henry V stands out for the generous amount of space it allots to his long royal apprenticeship – the critical first twenty-six years of his life before he became king. It is an enthralling portrait of a man with a rare ability to force his will on the world. But, above all, it is an unmissable account of England’s greatest king from our bestselling medieval historian.

By: Dan Jones
Imprint: Head of Zeus
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm,
ISBN: 9781035910816
ISBN 10: 1035910810
Pages: 464
Publication Date: 03 September 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Dan Jones is the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of many non-fiction books, including The Plantagenets, The Templars, and Powers and Thrones. He is a renowned writer, broadcaster and journalist. He has presented dozens of TV shows, including the Netflix series Secrets of Great British Castles, and writes and hosts the podcast This is History. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Reviews for Henry V: The Astonishing Rise of England's Greatest Warrior King

Praise for Dan Jones: A terrifically colourful and compelling narrative history... bustling and sizzling with life on every page * Sunday Times * A badass history writer... to put it mildly * Duff McKagan * A historian who writes as addictively as any page-turning novelist * Observer * Wildly gripping, swashbuckling, battle-scarred and blood-spattered, in equal parts ferocious, dynamic and political, intimate and humane, the best biography yet of England's greatest king. * Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The World: A Family History of Humanity *