"One of the most misleading factors in history is the practice of historians to build a story exclusively out of the records which have come down to them. The records are in many cases a very small part of what took place, and to fill the picture one has to visualize the daily life - the constant discussions between ministers, the friendly dinners, the many days when nothing happened worthy of record, but during which events were nonetheless proceeding."

Winston Churchill

"Dobbs is following in a respectable tradition. Shakespeare, Walter Scott, even Tolstoy, all used historical events as the framework for their writings. And, unlike some of their distinguished works, Dobbs's novel is, in fact, astonishingly historically accurate."

Anthony Howard, The Times