The Silversleeves, for example, originally a French family, are shrewd financiers who work both sides of the politics of their times. The narrative is organized as a series of short stories that hop across the centuries, featuring an assortment of historical figures and six fictional families, whose fortunes rise and fall over several generations, as dramatically as the tidal Thames.Īs the pageant unfolds, suspense is generated as we catch sight of members of this company in each era and wait to see if they'll be protagonists or minor players, heroes or villains. "London was always a city of large numbers of aliens who quickly assimilated," the author writes. The Romans turn out to be only the first of a series of successful invaders over the next eight centuries, including the Danes (who named the days of the week), Anglo-Saxons (who named nearly everything else, especially towns and topography) and Catholics, led by St. The Celtic tribes opposing his army are ferocious but undisciplined the religion of the druids is fading, leaving no clear social structure. Rutherfurd, author of the equally massive best-sellers "Sarum" and "Russka," begins the tale during the first skirmishes with England - by Julius Caesar in 54 B.C. "London," the novel, is also a sprawling epic, as is the story of the city. The rest is history, and, as it turns out, quite a good story - especially in the hands of novelist Edward Rutherfurd. and saw the strategic value of a bend where the river they called "Tamesis" narrowed enough to be bridged and connect the roads that pulled their new colony together. It didn't even exist until the Romans conquered the country in 43 A.D. For most of the early eras of England, London didn't matter.
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