Plato Papers : A Novel

From the imagination of one of the most brilliant writers of our time and bestselling author ofThe Life of Thomas More, a novel that playfully imagines how the "modern" era might appear to a thinker seventeen centuries hence. At the turn of the 38th century, London's greatest orator, Plato, is known for his lectures on the long, tumultuous history of his now tranquil city. Plato focuses on the obscure and confusing era that began in A.D. 1500, the Age of Mouldwarp. His subjects include Sigmund Freud's comic masterpiece "Jokes and Their Relation to the Subconscious," and Charles D.'s greatest novel, "The Origin of Species." He explores the rituals of Mouldwarp, and the later cult of webs and nets that enslaved the population. By the end of his lecture series, however, Plato has been drawn closer to the subject of his fascination than he could ever have anticipated. At once funny and erudite,The Plato Papersis a smart and entertaining look at how the future is imagined, the present absorbed, and the past misrepresented. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Peter Ackroyd is a bestselling writer of both fiction and nonfiction. His most recent books include the biographies <b>Dickens, Blake</b><i>, </i>and <b>Thomas More</b><i> </i>and the novels <b>The Trial of Elizabeth Cree, Milton in America</b><i>, </i>and <b>The Plato Papers</b><i>. </i>He has won the Whitbread Biography Award, the Royal Society of Literature’s William Heinemann Award (jointly), the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and <i>The Guardian</i> fiction prize. He lives in London.