Graven with Diamonds: The Many Lives of Thomas Wyatt: Courtier, Poet, Assasin, Spy

Graven with Diamonds by Nicola Shulman

Just a quick post to let you know about this new book called Graven with Diamonds: The Many Lives of Thomas Wyatt: Courtier, Poet, Assasin, Spy by Nicola Shulman. It is a close study of the Tudor poet Sir Thomas Wyatt and is due to be released this month. I think it sounds very interesting.

Here is the synopsis,

This intriguing and amusing book tells the story of Henry VIII, – his court, his victims and his Queens – from the perspective of a powerful but little-discussed influence in the lives of those involved: poetry. Learned divines despised it, sober heads ignored it, but for Henry, the beau ideal of chivalry, poetry made things happen. It affected his wars, his diplomacy and his many marriages. It was at the root of his fatal attraction to Anne Boleyn, the source of her power and it was the means of her destruction. In this witty and accessible account, Nicola Shulman interweaves the bloody events of Henry’s reign with the story of English love poetry and the life of its first master, Henry’s most glamorous and enigmatic subject: Sir Thomas Wyatt.

Thomas Wyatt

Courtier, spy, wit, diplomat, assassin, lover of Anne Boleyn, and favourite both of Henry and his sinister minister Thomas Cromwell, the brilliant Wyatt was admired and envied in equal measure. His love poetry began as an elite and risque entertainment for the group of ambitious men and women at the slippery top of the court. But when the axe began to fall among this group, and Henry’s laws made his subjects fall silent in terror, Wyatt’s poetic skills became a way to survive. He saw that a love poem was a place where secrets could hide.

Author Biography

Nicola Shulman is a writer and reviewer for publications including the Sunday Telegraph, the TLS and Harpers & Queen. She lives with her family in London and in Yorkshire. She published A Rage for Rock Gardening, The story of Reginald Farrer, gardener, writer and plant collector with Short Books in 2002.

For more information on the author read Nicola Shulman is a modern marchioness among the Tudors.