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The King at the Edge of the World: A Novel Hardcover – February 11, 2020
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“Evokes flashes of Hilary Mantel, John le Carré and Graham Greene, but the wry, tricky plot that drives it is pure Arthur Phillips.”—The Wall Street Journal
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW AND THE WASHINGTON POST
The year is 1601. Queen Elizabeth I is dying, childless. Her nervous kingdom has no heir. It is a capital crime even to think that Elizabeth will ever die. Potential successors secretly maneuver to be in position when the inevitable occurs. The leading candidate is King James VI of Scotland, but there is a problem.
The queen’s spymasters—hardened veterans of a long war on terror and religious extremism—fear that James is not what he appears. He has every reason to claim to be a Protestant, but if he secretly shares his family’s Catholicism, then forty years of religious war will have been for nothing, and a bloodbath will ensue. With time running out, London confronts a seemingly impossible question: What does James truly believe?
It falls to Geoffrey Belloc, a secret warrior from the hottest days of England’s religious battles, to devise a test to discover the true nature of King James’s soul. Belloc enlists Mahmoud Ezzedine, a Muslim physician left behind by the last diplomatic visit from the Ottoman Empire, as his undercover agent. The perfect man for the job, Ezzedine is the ultimate outsider, stranded on this cold, wet, and primitive island. He will do almost anything to return home to his wife and son.
Arthur Phillips returns with a unique and thrilling novel that will leave readers questioning the nature of truth at every turn.
- Print length288 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRandom House
- Publication dateFebruary 11, 2020
- Dimensions6.4 x 0.97 x 9.5 inches
- ISBN-100812995481
- ISBN-13978-0812995480
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Darkly entertaining . . . Phillips writes with such breadth, intelligence and wit . . . The novel is brilliant—textured, witty and Shakespeare-deep with palace intrigue, lust, conspiracy, xenophobia and Iago-level villainy.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Arthur Phillips fans will recognize—and new readers will thrill to—the immersive mix of erudition, brio, and heart in The King at the Edge of the World. Phillips is an original—and in top form.”—Jennifer Egan
“Terrifically engaging . . . [a] rich historical novel.”—The Washington Post
“A rare combination of literary finesse and quick-paced plot—and another triumph from the versatile Phillips. . . . One is reminded of Hilary Mantel's magisterial Wolf Hall but perhaps more pointedly of Graham Greene's novels.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Highly recommended . . . truly original . . . The indefatigably imaginative Phillips . . . offers historical fiction with aching contemporary overtones.”—Library Journal (starred review)
“[An] inventively multilayered novel . . . evoked in exquisite language full of subtle shadings. . . . Readers will flock to the latest from esteemed bestseller Phillips, whose signature literary prowess and nimble imagination remain ascendant.”—Booklist
“Phillips masterfully renders the period and packs the narrative with surprising twists. This clever, serpentine novel recalls the historical dramas of Hilary Mantel and the thrillers of John le Carré, and will reverberate in readers’ minds.”—Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
In the Palace of Felicity, in Constantinople, in the land of the Turks, early in the Christian year 1591, viziers to Murad the Great, third of that name, Sultan of the Ottomans, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, Caliph of Caliphs, dispatched an embassy to a far-off, sunless, primitive, sodden, heathen kingdom at the far cliffside edge of the civilized earth. The sultan chose as his ambassador a loyal and trusted man, but nobody of great importance, to negotiate with the people of that patch of damp turf.
Still, one must send someone to discuss trade and passports and the repatriation of unlucky Turkish sailors captured by the pirate crews who cowered in the harbors of that barbarian island. Those pirates thrived under the protection of the island’s capricious sultana, cruel in her poverty, weakness, fearful isolation, and unnatural state of unmarried womanly rule. She also begged for the Ottoman sultan’s support against her enemies, locked as she was in a bloody and endless sectarian combat with others of her kind about some incomprehensible quarrel over their false religion. The sultan felt it was time to send someone competent to the island of the English to wring concessions from her queen.
And so the ambassador and his entourage traveled to the end of the world. The ambassador, a eunuch who had been born a Christian in Portugal and recognized the truth of Mohammed when he was captured at the age of eleven, led a small retinue, only fourteen men: his chief adviser, a doctor of medicine, servants, scribes, guards. He carried for the island’s sultana, among many other gifts, a pair of lions, a scimitar, a unicorn’s horn, and ten English pirates captured by Turkish sailors.
This last gift assured that the ambassador and his men were welcomed to London by a torchlight parade through the gawping crowds near St. Lawrence Jewry church, winding to the large house where they would live for five months before returning to Constantinople.
Mahmoud Ezzedine, the doctor responsible for the health of the ambassador first and then of every man of the embassy after, had tried to avoid this journey, but his presence was specifically requested.
He had enriched himself and gained a reputation, won favor and honor, wife and child, home and security, all from his carefully amassed medical knowledge. He had risen to become one of the physicians entrusted with the very bodies of the sultan and his family, and his life in Constantinople lacked for nothing. There was no pleasure in losing a year of his wife’s company, of his son’s growth, of attempting a second child. Despite a lack of success so far, he had enjoyed the process. And, nearly as important, there was no pleasure in being away from the royal family, whose health he protected and cherished even beyond his own.
He had dared to ask an influential courtier if there were any possibility of another physician being sent in his place. The man said he would inquire, but he must have done so clumsily, for a few days later, Ezzedine was visited at home by Cafer bin Ibrahim, who would be the ambassador’s chief adviser for the expedition. “Dr. Ezzedine,” said Cafer, over coffee and figs brought by the doctor’s translucently veiled wife, Saruca, to the courtyard of the house and served under the shade and pink flowers of the Judas trees. “It was I who suggested to the sultan that he send you to England. And he was enthusiastic that you should protect us all. And you would now refuse?”
“Of course I would not dream of refusing.”
“I’m glad to hear you say it. I misunderstood some idiot at court who misrepresented your words and heart to me. You should be careful whom you entrust with them. May I take another fig?”
The doctor’s son, Ismail, cried for two nights after he learned of his father’s approaching departure for Christian England. “I won’t be gone so long as all that,” he told Saruca as the boy sobbed himself to sleep. “I will bring him something English as a gift. It is gratifying to think I will be so missed.” He reached for his wife’s hand across the bed.
“He is afraid you will not return,” she said. “He told me he was afraid you will be eaten by lions.”
“I will reassure him. The English don’t have lions.”
The next morning, however, the boy was in no mood to be condescended to. “I didn’t say lions,” he said, stamping a foot. “I said Lionheart. You are going to where Richard Lionheart came from.”
Ezzedine tried not to laugh. “But Lionheart died long ago. And all the Crusaders were defeated long ago. There are no more Crusaders.”
“But his people may still be like him. And want to hurt you.”
“I promise I will be safe,” said Dr. Ezzedine, kissing the top of the boy’s head. It smelled of something dusty but sweet, like a flower’s pollen.
Saruca told him the night before his departure, “It is bad that you go. I don’t want to watch you leave. So I practice imagining it and accepting it. I don’t want to curse your absence.” She kissed him in the morning as he stood outside, the boy clinging to his leg. “I accept this,” she said, before she began to weep and pulled the crying boy away. The doctor walked down to the sea. He tried not to look back but didn’t succeed.
Throughout their stay, the ambassador and his men had audiences with the English sultana at Greenwich and Nonsuch palaces and hosted her and her people in turn to feasts à la Turkeska at the ambassador’s residence, where they slaughtered all their meat themselves in the correct manner. For months, official negotiations were conducted in the cold rooms of the queen’s palaces or upon her green parklands. Conclusions were reached in matters of sea-lanes and free overland passages, the exchange of captured pirates/sailors, various immunities and protections for Englishmen voyaging in the empire of the Ottomans. Much of the diplomacy was a duel of imaginations, conceptions of events that had not yet occurred but were suddenly pressingly possible.
“And if an Englishman traveling in Qustantiniyya should wish to convert to the religion of Mohammed?” asked the ambassador’s chief adviser, Cafer bin Ibrahim. This particular question amused those of the English negotiators who had never left England but deeply troubled those English who had traveled, especially in Mahometan lands. There was much to be said for any religion that promised wealth, opportunity, and wives in this world. (This was a truth as obvious as air to the Turks, one they lived with daily. Back in Constantinople, bin Ibrahim, always hurriedly sold any of his Christian slaves who were considering converting to the true faith, or else he would have had to free them at a loss, enslavement of his co-religionists being illegal.)
Conversely, the question arose of Turk merchants traveling within England and of their free and safe passage throughout the kingdom, of what protections the queen might guarantee a hypothetical Mahometan buyer of, say, tin. Could such a one reside unmolested in London? Or travel to mines farther inland? And pray to Allah and his saints as his law demanded, five times daily? Even when it was pointed out that Jews (who were obviously worse and more dangerous) sometimes were free to move about, the English found the prospect of a freely roaming Turk so astonishing and obviously unsanitary to the body politic that the topic was temporarily set aside. But then one of the queen’s privy councillors, Robert Beale, pointed out that if (as the Turkish negotiators insisted) any Englishman in the Ottoman Empire who of free conscience wished to swear allegiance to Mohammed could not be prevented from doing so, then any Ottoman wishing to profess his devotion to Jesus Christ was similarly at liberty to do so while in England. The Ottoman ambassador readily agreed to this reciprocity, unable to conceive of any Ottoman who would see an advantage—spiritual or economic—in apostasy or, for that matter, take up permanent residence on this island. England was simply too poor and Christianity too unpromising in this life. After all, they were scarcely able to convince some of the English pirates to return from Constantinople. Even those in prison.
Meanwhile, at the suggestion of Dr. Ezzedine, all the men of the embassy performed zakat by paying, as their wealth allowed them, for the release or well-being of Turkish prisoners held in England. Ezzedine went further and, under escort, searched in the darkest parts of London for a rumored community of Moors awaiting passports or funds to sail for happier places. Dr. Ezzedine would have given generously to these unfortunates, if he could have found them.
Product details
- Publisher : Random House (February 11, 2020)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0812995481
- ISBN-13 : 978-0812995480
- Item Weight : 1.15 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.4 x 0.97 x 9.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #831,672 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,216 in Historical British & Irish Literature
- #2,031 in Biographical Historical Fiction
- #41,110 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Arthur Phillips was born in Minneapolis and educated at Harvard. He has been a child actor, a jazz musician, a speechwriter, a dismally failed entrepreneur, and a five-time Jeopardy! champion.
His first novel, PRAGUE, was named a New York Times Notable Book, and received The Los Angeles Times/Art Seidenbaum Award for best first novel. His second novel, THE EGYPTOLOGIST, was an international bestseller, and was on more than a dozen "Best of 2004" lists. ANGELICA, his third novel, made The Washington Post best fiction of 2007 and led that paper to call him "One of the best writers in America." THE SONG IS YOU was a New York Times Notable Book, on the Post's best of 2009 list, and inspired Kirkus to write, "Phillips still looks like the best American novelist to have emerged in the present decade." His fifth book, THE TRAGEDY OF ARTHUR was published in 2011 to critical acclaim, including being named a New York Times Notable Book, and being shortlisted for the IMPAC International Literary Prize.
His newest book is THE KING AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, coming in February 2020.
He lives in New York and Los Angeles.
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I have read a lot of nonfiction about James VI and the agony the Elizabeth I's councilors went through when she was was about to die without issue. The two complicating factors regarding who would follow her were the religion and/or gender of her successor. While there were a number of possibilities, a Protestant male was favored. As James VI famous mother, Mary Queen of Scots, was strongly Catholic, this leading character of this book was sent, as a doctor, to get clarity about the subject of James' faith while he was only king of Scotland. Or to spy. All of this squares with history. Elizabeth's chief secretary was running a spy network. As her older sister (Bloody Mary Tudor) had persecuted, yes, burned Protestants, the faith of the next ruler was important.
However, to me, the doctor is such a victim....endlessly...over 100s of pages, I just could not warm up to him. True, he is a stranger in a strange land, endlessly passed around like a pet dog....only with less affection. He is a good man with a better moral compass than the Christians who constantly abuse him. Yet, at times he seemed like a simpleton, although there is a twist at the end of the book that FINALLY proves otherwise. If you enjoy reading about such travails, you may like this book more than I did. Yes I felt pity and fear for him, but the feelings became boring.
The leading spy, who is running him, is a much more interesting character who, to some degree, redeems himself at the end of the book even though he originally presents as a blood-thirsty (intelligent) thug doing all in his power to catch and kill Catholics. His experience on the Elizabethan theater is very interesting.
And, finally, there is James VI of Scotland, soon to be James I of England. I have read some biographies of him, and he had more than his share of faults and demons -- understandable given his upbringing by regents. However, he is depicted as a weak-minded fool whose only interest is his young French male lover, chess and hunting. His wife, Anne, is barely on the scene. One wonders how they managed to give six or seven children (only a couple of which survived to adulthood). One also wonders how such a fool (he has been called "the wisest fool in Christendom) was able to bind many of the wounds from religious strife in England after becoming king. One way he did it was by selecting a committee of religious leaders to come up with a common Bible, which we now know as the King James version. Huh!
And...finally...a spoiler alert. We never really know what becomes of the doctor. At that point I could have thrown the book across the room, except it was on my Kindle.
The novel leaves a learned young man from the Ottoman Empire stranded in England in the age of Queen Elizabeth the first. There is a great deal of interesting relativizing of the familiar--the things "normal" for us are often very odd to the stranger, and his perspective on the politics of the period is also fascinating. And--no spoiler, really, I think--the author leaves open at the end whether he finally goes home or is killed in England: his situation is such that either is plausible. The writing is strong but does not strive for elegance. Surely this will not be to the taste of many, but it's thoughtfully and carefully done.
Hillary Mantel novels, the trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, are also pleasant ways to get some historical perspective, and this novel adds to the texture of the Tudor period.
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Slow build up to define main characters then seeing how they respond to situations