Merivel: A Man of His Time by Rose Tremain – review - Books

Merivel: A Man of His Time by Rose Tremain – review

Rose Tremain’s Merivel is much the better character 20 years on from Restoration.

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29th September, 2012

Review

Picaresque novels are all very well, but at times the reader can tire of a roguish character careering perilously through life, often with scant regard for others. Restoration, Rose Tremain’s first novel to feature Merivel – amusing fool, physician – is a classic of this type. The consummate social climber, Merivel is a friend of Charles II, the English king who lost his father to an unfortunate fashion: republicanism. But friendships with kings are fickle, fraught things. By the end of Restoration, we’d been through the Plague and the Great Fire of London and in and out of various ...

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