God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible

A network of complex currents flowed across Jacobean England. This was the England of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Bacon; the era of the Gunpowder Plot and the worst outbreak of the plague. Jacobean England was both more godly and less godly than it had ever been, and the entire culture was drawn taut between these polarities. This was the world that created the King James Bible. It is the greatest work of English prose ever written, and it is no coincidence that the translation was made at the moment ""Englishness,"" specifically the English language itself, had come into its first passionate maturity. The English of Jacobean England has a more encompassing idea of its own scope than any form of the language before or since. It drips with potency and sensitivity. The age, with all its conflicts, explains the book.

Adam Nicolson is the author of Sea Room, about the islands he owns in the Hebrides, and the national bestseller and New York Times Notable Book God's Secretaries, on the making of the King James Bible. His most recent book is Seize the Fire, about Admiral Nelson and the battle of Trafalgar. He is the winner of the Somerset Maugham and William Heinemann Prizes, and lives with his family at Sissinghurst Castle.