The Clerkenwell Tales. (Signed copy): Signed Copy

2003. First edition. Hardback. Fine / Fine. FINE BOOK and Wrapper. an Unread Copy. First, Signed by author. The Clerkenwell Tales is a truly extraordinary feat of historical imagination: a slim novel, straining at the seams with a sort of macabre relish, in which disgust and enthusiasm jostle. The Sunday Telegraph A gripping thriller which also happens to be wonderfully full of engaging historical detail and conversation-enhancing words like hopharlot. Literary Review [The Clerkenwell Tales] is a pacy novel brimming with Ackroyds imaginative use of scholarship. This is more than a reworking of earlier material, be it Chaucers or his own. Ackroyd is clearly out to impress, and its worked. The Daily Telegraph Historical fiction of the utmost potency. The Daily Mail Ackroyds colour is so curious, so rich and so variegated that there is something in almost every sentence to sharpen ones sense of late 14th-century London as squirmingly aliveand extremely pungent . . . a cunning little intrigue. The Spectator Ackroyds learning is as impressive as his imagination . . . Like Chaucer, Ackroyd sees literature and history as part of the same tradition. The Observer The Clerkenwell Talesis a tour-de-force, full of rich imaginings and strange happenings. It is as finely wrought as an illuminated manuscript.

Y2