King of England Henry VIII - Graven with diamonds: the many lives of Thomas Wyatt: poet, lover, statesman, and spy in the court of Henry VIII

Masterly full of good jokes the best work of history this year.

AN Wilson, Book of the Year, Evening Standard

The outstanding history book of the year A perceptive work of radiant scholarship. Brilliantly evokes the thrilling and often dangerous role of poetry in the court of Henry VIII. Wyatts life as courtier, spy, lover and diplomat was extraordinary enough. What makes Shulmans work such a joy is the revelatory urgency with which she engages with language.

Lisa Hilton, Independent

Really exciting: a literary thriller Im already dreading finishing it.

Rachel Cooke, Independent, Best Summer Reads

Beautifully intelligent and lucid Shulman does a wonderful job of showing how Wyatt is one of those poets (one of the best types of poet) whose work conceals enormous complexity and strong countercurrents of thought and feeling underneath an apparently plain and transparent surface.

John Lanchester, Book of the Year, New Statesman

In this poised, lucid, often arresting and frequently witty biography, Nicola Shulman strides confidently where academics fear to tread Depicting Henrys court as a world of terror and uncertainty, she shows how lyric poetry with its dangerously subversive possibilities became in Wyatts hands an ideal medium for saying what could never be said.

John Guy, Sunday Times; Book of the Year, Glasgow Herald

Nicola Shulman pulls off the tricky task of moving between the edgy life and the wonderfully elusive writing of Henry VIIIs greatest poet, without reducing the poems to mere biographical ciphers.

Jonathan Bate, Sunday Telegraph, Book of the Year

A clever biography, captivating as a netsuke and as charming as an historical novel.

Times Sat Review, Best Summer Reads

A brilliant example of literary rehabilitation A narrative full of scheming courtiers, amorous women, slippery foreigners and a cruel but oddly earnest king who worshipped poetry What is so compelling about Graven with Diamonds is not the just the story Nicola Shulman tells, but the way she tells it The result is a thrilling book that manages to be both scholarly and wonderfully readable.

***** Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday

This glitteringly brilliant book dazzles in its scope, its scholarship and its originality As a biography it is exceptionally accomplished, as an illumination of the function of literature under tyranny it is extraordinarily modern. Everyone who cares anything for poetry should read this vivid, dynamic and exhilarating account of how and why words matter.

Times Literary Supplement, Book of the Year

One of the joys of this book is its lightness of touch In Shulmans company [Wyatt] is utterly captivating. The poems glisten again, illuminating everything and everyone around them. It is a marvellous achievement, and a lovely book.

Jessie Childs, The Literary Review

One of the most persuasive and pleasurable accounts of English Renaissance poetry to appear in years.

Boyd Tonkin, The Independent

A close presentation of Wyatt through his verse which gives a sudden and surprising insight into the entire Tudor world Written with the elevated clarity and dapperness distinctive, crisp, decided

David Sexton, Evening Standard

Wonderfully entertaining Morning fresh.

Irish Times

The great strength of Shulmans book lies in its incisive readings of Wyatts verse and its likely motivations. She writes precisely, with original, sympathetic perceptions and an infectious relish for her subject

The Daily Telegraph *****

Shulman has a gift for detail and for vivid phraseology; the complexities of Henrician intrigue are laid out in easily comprehensible fashion so that even a novice such as I can grasp them This finely considered, silver-veined biography is a decorous and wise monument: now, as Shulman provides the right circuitry, his poems will spark up for us all.

Philip Womack, Daily Telegraph

Wyatt was not only a poet he may have been the lover of Anne Boleyn, and also had a reputation as both an assassin and a spy. All of these disparate threads, with a lavish helping of his verse, are woven through Graven With Diamonds by Nicola Shulman, whose lyrical prose creatively matches that of her extraordinary subject.

Oxford Times

Sharp, dangerous and exhilarating bursting with drama as well as being scholarly and full of surprises.

Geordie Greig, Book of the Year - Evening Standard

Spectacular brilliance Deftly combining the skills of critic, biographer and historian, Shulman illuminates the poems by their context and vice versa.

Lewis Jones, Spectator.

Trenchant lively and sensitive.

Guardian

Elegant literary criticism and fresh insights into the most influential poet of his day.

The Tatler