The Fall of Troy
  • Published: 1 October 2007
  • ISBN: 9780099492757
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $19.99

The Fall of Troy

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A brilliant historical novel, set during the 19th century at the time that the Bronze Age site of Troy was being excavated, with Peter Ackroyd returning to one of his favourite themes: fakes, forgeries and plagiarism.

Sophia Chrysanthis is initially dazzled when the celebrated German archaeologist, Herr Obermann, comes in search of a Greek bride who can read the works of Homer and assist in his excavations of the city he believes is Ancient Troy.

But Obermann's past turns out to be full of skeletons and when a young American arrives to question the archeologist's methods and dies of a mysterious fever, Sophia wonders just how far he will go to protect his vision of Troy. Soon a second, British archeologist arrives, only to fall in love with Sophia, and as their relationship begins to parallel their Ancient Greek counterparts events move towards a gripping and terrible conclusion.
  • Published: 1 October 2007
  • ISBN: 9780099492757
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $19.99
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About the author

Peter Ackroyd

Peter Ackroyd is an award-winning historian, biographer, novelist, poet and broadcaster. He is the author of the acclaimed non-fiction bestsellers London: The Biography, Thames: Sacred River and London Under; biographies of figures including Charles Dickens, William Blake, Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock; and a multi-volume history of England. He has won the Whitbread Biography Award, the Royal Society of Literature's William Heinemann Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award and the South Bank Prize for Literature. He holds a CBE for services to literature.

portrait photo of Peter Ackroyd

Also by Peter Ackroyd

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Praise for The Fall of Troy

Peter Ackroyd takes the reader, in his usual compelling, elegant style, back to Heinrich Schliemann's excavation of that ancient city

Erica Wagner, The Times

Beautifully constructed, by turns playful and sinister...this book will haunt the reader's mind

Barry Unsworth, Sunday Telegraph

Erudite and witty... The Fall of Troy skilfully interweaves classical and 19th century stories, employing motifs from both Homer and Charlotte Bronte. This is Ackroyd's most exuberant novel for years

Michael Arditti, Daily Mail

Ackroyd imports a Mrs Rochester theme to Turkey, and the denouement has the atmosphere of a thriller, with innocents running for their lives

David Horspool, Sunday Times

Lurid and generally entertaining drama

Sue Gaisford, Independent on Sunday

The Fall of Troy is above all a love story, and like the best love stories it deals in obsession, deception, madness and death

Elizabeth Speller, Independent

Ingenious..... briskly told and vividly realised tale... a gripping novel

Peter Burton, Daily Express

Ackroyd's atmospheric novel begins with a flourish... [and] gradually turns into an almost Faustian tale

Irish Times

Gloomy, surprising and intelligent, Ackroyd's pose is sparse and considered and his characterisation is adroit. This is a compelling novel which never gives away more than it has to

Philip Womack, The Tablet

[A]n insightful portrait of a man with only one mission in life

Amy Mathieson, Scotsman

The Fall of Troy is written in the language of the nineteenth century intellectuals but is lively with it, displaying a directness, clarity and faultless brevity throughout. It warns us that the world is full of Heinrich Obermanns who have decided the meaning of what they might uncover before they have even started to dig

Glasgow Herald

A vivid reimagining of the discovery of what may have been the ancient city of Troy. A thought-provoking novel

John Williams, Mail on Sunday

Provoking, unsettling, ingenious - and a delight to read

Guardian

Obermann is a lively creation

Scotland on Sunday