The Last Kingdom (The Saxon Chronicles Series #1) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "My name is Uhtred..." (more)
Key Phrases: corpse hall, hammer amulet, raven banner, West Saxon, East Anglia, King Edmund (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Cornwell leaps back a millennium from his Richard Sharpe series to tell of the consolidation of England in the late ninth century and the role played by a young (fictional) warrior-in-training who's at the center of the war between Christian Englishmen and the pagan Danes. (Most of the other principal characters—Ubba, Guthrum, Ivar the Boneless and the like—are real historical figures.) Young Uhtred, who's English, falls under the control of Viking über-warrior Ragnar the Fearless when the Dane wipes out Uhtred's Northumberland family. Cornwell liberally feeds readers history and nuggets of battle data and customs, with Uhtred's first-person wonderment spinning all into a colorful journey of (self-)discovery. In a series of episodes, Ragnar conquers three of England's four kingdoms. The juiciest segment has King Edmund of East Anglia rebuking the Viking pagans and demanding that they convert to Christianity if they intend to remain in England. After Edmund cites the example of St. Sebastian, the Danes oblige him by turning him into a latter-day Sebastian and sending him off to heaven. Uhtred's affection for Ragnar as a surrogate father grows, and he surpasses the conqueror's blood sons in valor. When father and adopted son arrive at the fourth and last kingdom, however, the Danes meet unexpected resistance and Uhtred faces personal and familial challenges, as well as a crisis of national allegiance. This is a solid adventure by a crackling good storyteller.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From The Washington Post

You will look in vain for burnt oatcakes in this novel of King Alfred the Great; like Bernard Cornwell's brilliant trilogy of novels on King Arthur, which lacked both Holy Grail and enchanted sword, The Last Kingdom caters to those of us whose appetite for rehashed legends was satisfied long ago. In addition to providing thrilling combat action and satisfying details of material life, military accoutrement and battle tactics, Cornwell's best historical fiction pleases us mightily in the way his renditions of the great actors and events of yore stray from received versions. Such contrariness is partly the product of meticulous research and partly of a mischievous sense of humor. Happily, both inform The Last Kingdom throughout.

The Alfred of history and fable was learned and just, a pious man of delicate health who saved 9th-century England from being entirely colonized by pagan Danes and was elevated to sainthood after his death. Indeed, W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman identified him as England's first "Good King" in 1066 and All That -- which peerless repository of mangled historical cliché went on, naturally enough, to confound him with Arthur. The Alfred whom Cornwell sets before us is also learned and just, and he's pious in spades, always "wearing out his knees" in prayer and cherishing such relics as "a feather from the dove that Noah had released from the ark" and "a toe ring that had belonged to Mary Magdalene." But he is also a compulsive, if remorseful, fornicator, a martyr to hemorrhoids and intestinal distress and, at times, a hard-nosed conniver.

What we see of him in this, the first volume of a projected sequence, comes through the eyes of one Uhtred, whose tale, narrated from the vantage of old age, this really is. Born of noble stock in Northumbria, Uhtred is only 10 in 866, when he witnesses the battle that brings death to his father, "a morose man, expecting the worst and not fond of children." Captured and adopted by the far more congenial Ragnar, a fearless, high-spirited Danish lord, Uhtred embarks upon a perfect pagan boyhood, freed of the trammels of Christianity. He spends his hours burning "green muck" off the hulls of Danish ships, shield painting, cattle slaughtering, house thatching, tending charcoal burns and practicing with his sword, all admirably described -- and, eventually, in youthful sexual dalliance, not described, but which would have brought fire and brimstone down on his head in a Christian community.

The boy does not miss his father, or monkish censure or the noxious grind of learning to read, and becomes quite the pagan Dane in most ways. Uhtred's great object in life is to fight in a "shield wall" -- one of Cornwell's specialties (whereby warriors advance in a row, shields overlapping) -- and to reclaim his inheritance, the family domain and stronghold in Northumbria. His uncle has taken possession of both, cementing his hold by marrying Uhtred's father's widow. Vexed loyalties begin to proliferate in Uhtred's youthful bosom: toward England, toward the good-natured Danish lord, against a treacherous Danish villain, toward Danish paganism and against English Christian morality. Treacheries and prevarications abound, fortunes reverse, battles rage, and soon enough the youth ends up back with the English -- and his loyalties, well shuffled, begin to gravitate toward Alfred. This feeling turns to rueful wonder when he realizes that the great man has sent him on a mission meant to kill him, a breach of saintliness Alfred commits more than once.

This is a most enjoyable novel, and Cornwell has seasoned it with dashes of intoxicating pedantry. He shuns the word "Viking" (which "describes an activity rather than a people or a tribe. To go viking meant to go raiding") and eliminates horned helmets ("for which there is not a scrap of contemporary evidence"). His prose is not always the equal of his historical imagination and sense of character: He does not, for instance, achieve Patrick O'Brian's marriage of language and vision. Still, he does convey the disquiet of change and the melancholy of extinction as few historical novelists manage to.

The England of the 9th century conjured up here is a palimpsest, an ancient isle giving ghostly testimony to successive civilizations. Prehistoric forts, "old when the world was young," still exist, moldering and growing into the land. So, too, Roman roads continue to bear traffic and Roman structures still stand, left behind almost five centuries ago and inherited by peoples lacking the engineering and architectural capability or understanding to repair them. Here and there these marvels of imperial technology, materials and manpower provide the foundations for crude Saxon building, as in London, "where huge Roman buildings were buttressed by thatched wooden shacks." Meanwhile, the city's great bridge is falling down, and the old wharves and quays are "long rotted so that the waterfront east of the bridge was a treacherous place of rotted pilings and broken piers that stabbed the river like shattered teeth."

Place names are abundant in this peripatetic adventure, and in their Saxon forms we find the weird, almost ectoplasmic predecessors of today's tame locutions: Lundene, Eoferwic (York), Suth Seaxa (Sussex), Thornsaeta (Dorset), Defnascir (Devonshire) and Snotengaham. Cornwell wouldn't be his merry self if he didn't teach us that Nottingham was once bountiful Snotengaham, "the Home of Snot's people." Nor would he be his generous and indefatigable self if he did not promise us that this story "is far from over."

Reviewed by Katherine A. Powers
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins; Repack edition (January 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060887184
• ISBN-13: 978-0060887186
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (124 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,094 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 1 in The Saxon Chronicles Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

88 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE LAST KINGDOM Delivers!, December 3, 2004

By	Kimberly Gelderman (Spring Lake, MI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Last Kingdom (The Saxon Chronicles Series #1) (Hardcover)

It is Northumbria, England, in the year 866. Uhtred, the son of an Earl becomes an orphan at ten and is captured and adopted by Ragnar the Dane. He is taught the Viking ways and Ragnar becomes more a father to him than his own father ever was. He loves the unrestricted, impious ways of the Danes and learns to become a formidable warrior.

King Alfred, (later known as "The Great") is portrayed as an over pious but clever King of Essex. While Alfred is not a well-liked King, he is an intelligent one and soon comes to bind Uhtred to his cause against the Danes.

The brutally descriptive battle scenes are exciting and repellant at the same time. Battles and wars are not described here as glorious and heroic circumstances but as what they really were, brutal, bloody, and often times fatal.

This title was an excellent read and I just couldn't put it down many times at night. I've read it until the wee hours of the morning. I believe this is the best BC title I have ever read to date, even though I haven't read any of the Sharpe's novels (that era and place settings are not of interest to me). I highly recommend this novel to anyone interested in early English (Saxon) history and/or Alfred the Great (and in the upcoming series, his descendants).

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cornwell is a master of the historical novel, June 5, 2005

By	Jerry Saperstein (Evanston, IL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Last Kingdom (The Saxon Chronicles Series #1) (Hardcover)

Just a few moments ago, I was writing a review of one of Cornwell's American Civil War novels. Now I am writing a review of this Cornwell novel about 9th Century England. That's how good a historical novelist Cornwell is: the era doesn't matter. Cornwell weaves fact and fiction together seamlessly, believably and in a way sure to engage the reader's interest.

The year is 866 A.D. The island is not yet united and the Danes raid and conquer at will. Cornwell's device is Uhtred, the 10 year old son of a minor chieftain, who is taken by the Danes, raised in the Viking ways of war and accepted as a Viking warrior.

A priest becomes the medium through which the boy grows into a man and meets Alfred, the King who will take the first major steps in uniting England.

Cornwell's story is well plotted, his characters are delightfully rich and his history both interesting and fascinating. A wonderful read.

Jerry

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars my favorite of all, January 31, 2005

By	a reader (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Kingdom (The Saxon Chronicles Series #1) (Hardcover)

I've read almost all the Cornwell books: the Sharpe series, Civil War series, the archer, and King Arthur--only the 2 or 3 individual novels have been missed. This is my favorite so far. It is similar to the King Arthur books but with less of the mysticism and magic. The hero is a spunky boy who amuses a Viking chief during a battle and is adopted; the Norse life proves to be more suited to his taste and he grows up as a Dane. However, some old business brings him back to the English side. I won't tell more but any lover of historical fiction will find it hard to put this book down.