The Life of Sir Thomas More
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only
- Written
- written c. 1556, published 1626
- Era
- Renaissance
- Language
- English
- Length
- Short · 60 ppunder 120 pages
- Difficulty
- Moderate2 of 5 for a first-year reader
We recommendTwo Early Tudor LivesYale University Press, 1962Prints Roper's Life with Cavendish's Life of Wolsey in modernised spelling with notes.
These links go straight to Amazon and Bookshop.org and earn this site nothing today. Prices are the same either way. How this works.
A short memoir of Thomas More by his son-in-law, who lived in More's household for sixteen years, written under Mary I as a source for a fuller biography. Roper records More's rise to Lord Chancellor, his conversations with Henry VIII in the garden at Chelsea, his refusal to swear the oath acknowledging the king's supremacy over the church, his imprisonment in the Tower, his trial on the testimony of Richard Rich, and his execution in 1535. The scenes of More's parting from his daughter Margaret at the Tower wharf were the source for the play A Man for All Seasons.
No reading guide yet
The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns The Life of Sir Thomas More are verified against each program's published list.
What is missing is the part that takes real work: the summary, the key passages, and a recommended translation. The edition named below is the one most programs assign, so the buy links are useful already.

