Most Popular Books by A. N. Wilson

A deeply textured and ambitious portrait of the life of Queen Victoria''s husband and his influence on Great Britain, by the author of Victoria . "An engrossing biography that continues the author''s long engagement with the Victorian age. . . . [Wilson''s] most striking contribution, though, is a psychologically astute approach to Victoria and Albert, one that results in a persuasive and humane account of their marriage." — Wall Street Journal For more than six decades, Queen Victoria ruled a great Empire at the height of its power. Beside her for more than twenty of those years was the love of her life, her trusted husband and father of their nine children, Prince Albert. But while Victoria is seen as the embodiment of her time, its values, and its paradoxes, it was Prince Albert, A. N. Wilson expertly argues, who was at the vanguard of Victorian Britain''s transformation as a vibrant and extraordinary center of political, technological, scientific, and intellectual advancement. Far more than just the product of his age, Albert was one of its influencers and architects. A composer, engineer, soldier, politician, linguist, and bibliophile, Prince Albert, more than any other royal, was truly a "genius." It is impossible to understand nineteenth century England without knowing the story of this gifted visionary leader, Wilson contends. Albert lived only forty-two years. Yet in that time, he fathered the royal dynasties of Germany, Russia, Spain, and Bulgaria. Through Victoria, Albert and her German advisers pioneered the idea of the modern constitutional monarchy. In this sweeping biography, Wilson demonstrates that there was hardly any aspect of British national life which Albert did not touch. When he was made Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in his late twenties, it was considered as purely an honorific role. But within months, Albert proposed an extensive reorganization of university life in Britain that would eventually be adopted, making it possible to study science, languages, and modern history at British universities—a revolution in education that has changed the world. Drawn from the Royal archives, including Prince Albert''s voluminous correspondence, this brilliant and ambitious book offers fascinating never-before-known details about the man and his time. A superb match of biographer and subject, Prince Albert, at last, gives this important historical figure the reverence and recognition that is long overdue. "Was ''Victorian'' England in fact shaped less by Queen Victoria than by her husband, Prince Albert? This biography makes the case for his underrated genius and lasting influence." — New York Times Book Review , New and Noteworthy

When Fanny Williams, a successful boutique owner, tries to buy an abandoned church to use as a warehouse, she learns that its architect was Oswald Fish, who has played an unsuspected role in her life

This critical biography the indifference which has surrounded Scott in this century and the distortions of his Victorian idolators to recapture the freshness of Scott as he appeared to his contemporaries. By weaving together the life and works, and examining all of Scott''s best-known books

In this powerful novel that will confirm his reputation as one of Britain''s brightest literary lights, A. N. Wilson recounts the downward spiral of Francis Kreer, a clergyman who does not believe in God and whose life starts to come apart at the seams. When his mother dies, Francis is shocked to discover that she had a lover and that he must share his inheritance with this (awful) man. Then Francis falls in love-painfully, absolutely-with an irresistable but most unsuitable young woman.A. N. Wilson traces Francis''s descent through various circles of the English establishment, a tragi-comic journey that takes the hapless hero to the outer edges of both absurdity and despair.

Focusing on Queen, Elizabeth II, as she turns 90, this examination of the life and times of Britain''s most iconic living figure, considers the history of the monarchy, drawing a line between Victoria, the murder of the Romanovs, and the bloody history of Europe in the twentieth century, examining how and why the Royal Family has survived. He paints a vivid portrait of ''Lilibet'' the woman, and of her reign, throughout which she has remained stalwart, unmoving, a trait some regard as dullness, but which Wilson argues is the key to her survival.

A narrative examining faith in the western world illuminates the central tragedy of the nineteenth century--that God, or rather man''s faith in God, died, but the need to worship remained as a torment to those who thought they had buried Him

This mordantly witty and profoundly entertaining novel explores the twin destinies of Giles Fox, a lecherous, twice-widowed medievalist who has lost his sight during eighteen years devoted to the transcription and translation of the thirteenth-century Treatise of Heavenly Love, and of his daughter, Tibba, a lovely, stammering seventeen-year-old whose daydreams are full of characters out of Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen.

Hazel the guinea pig gets stuck in a boot, sees her hutch invaded by an enemy guinea pig, and gives birth unexpectedly.

Pamela Cowper must deal with life and confront death after being diagnosed as having cancer