"This remarkable book," as Professor GM Trevelyan writes in his Foreword, "is not an ordinary historical novel." It is the fruit of a rare and equal partnership between learning and imagination. The story opens just after the coronation of Edward the Confessor and takes us up to the Norman Invasion. Who was to succeed King Edward? From the welter of political cross-currents, rivalries, violence and intrigue set up by this question, the two dominating figures of the novel emerge - earl Harold and Duke William of Normandy. The issue was decided at the Battle of Hastings. With her stirring account of the battle and of the invasion threat which preceded it, Miss Muntz brings her book to a magnificently thrilling climax. She writes in a saga style worthy of this epic subject with all its drama, pageantry and heroism. So compelling is her story-telling power that the 'old, unhappy, far-off things' of which she writes seem to have happened only yesterday.