Sir William: Or A Lesson in Love by David Stacton is a richly layered historical novel that delves into the life and loves of Sir William Hamilton, a British diplomat and antiquarian whose fascinating relationships became the stuff of legend. Set in the opulent and turbulent world of 18th-century Europe, this novel masterfully intertwines personal passion, political intrigue, and the allure of art and beauty.At the heart of the story is the complex and unconventional triangle betwee...

Shipwrecked on the shores of Yucatán, Guerrero is a Spanish soldier torn between two worlds. A Signal Victory traces his transformation: from outsider to prince, from conqueror to rebel, as he marries a Mayan royal daughter and chooses his true allegiance. Set at the collision point of European invasion and indigenous resilience, this novel explores how identities shift and loyalties burn in the crucible of empire.Stacton's narrative is no...

The Judges of the Secret Court , first published in 1961, is a historical novel about John Wilkes Booth and the aftermath of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. The book vividly portrays the setting and sentiments of the time, as well as Wilkes' befuddled thinking and his short-lived escape from justice, followed by the trial of those involved in the assassination.David Stacton's The Judges of The Secret Court is a long-lost triumph of...

'Yes, it was a crusade. But just what was it the people out there feared and hated so much? Not surely the candidate. He was a decent man. Or was that it?'With Tom Fool (1962) David Stacton concluded a triptych of novels drawn from the history of America. For this final panel he turned his eye on politics. The titular protagonist is a fictional rendering of Wendell Wilkie, unlikely Republican challenger to Franklin D. Roosevelt in the presidential election of 1940...

The last of the three trilogies authored by David Stacton (1923-68) was described by the author as 'an intermezzo designed to deal with sexual relations'. After Old Acquaintance (1962) and Sir William (1963) came Kaliyuga (1965), described by Stacton as 'the story of the relations of Siva and Kali, lightly told'.Its chief figures are Charlie and Denise, an American couple in Switzerland, prone to domestic spats. After one such set-to Charlie finds himself...

This compelling historical fiction of the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination is an “exploration by a brilliant and thoughtful writer of the labyrinthine ways of good and evil”(Los Angeles Times)"The Judges of the Secret Court isn’t just a novel about John Wilkes Booth; it is a vision of what life and the world do to us."—Michael Dirda, The Washington PostDavid Stacton’s The Judges of The Secret Court i...

'Dancer in Darkness is a unique three-way collaboration - the tragic tale of the murdered Giovanna d'Aragona, Duchess of Amalfi, as told in Renaissance Italian sources, then in The Duchess of Malfi, John Webster's masterpiece of Jacobean revenge and fate, and now here by David Stacton, the literally incomparable American historical novelist. Black as stage velvet, Stacton's version is as full of chilling insights and dreadful doings as Webster's, but at bottom all his own...

' People of the Book is set in the Thirty Years' War, which began and still shapes our present system of world order. David Stacton's incomparable prose reveals how the treatises of scholars and the tactics of commanders so rarely comprehend the vagaries of the human condition. A book to put on the shelf with Thucydides' Peloponnesian War and Tolstoy's War and Peace.'Professor Charles Hill *(*author of Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and Wor...

'King Ludwig has fascinated me ever since I was a child, yet fascination is not quite the right word. Fellow-feeling would be the proper phrase...' David Stacton, 1957With his fourth published novel - and his first on historical themes and personages - David Stacton's writing career took a decisive turn. Remember Me, over which he laboured for four years, is an extraordinarily vivid and felt portrait of the infamous Ludwig II of Bavaria, evoking with assurance the...

' On A Balcony is devoted to the 14th century [B.C.] and the Pharaoh Ikhnaton, his sister-wife Nefertiti, the sculptor Tutmose, and the rivalry his religion of Aton brought to Egypt and its then current cult of Amon... presenting Ikhnaton's imposition of a new religion upon those who look on him as a god.' Kirkus Review'A fascinating study in royal neuroticism.' John Davenport, Observer'A weird, subtle and compelling novel.' Time & Tide

Sir William (1963) was the second entry in David Stacton's triptych of novels on the theme of 'The Sexes', for which he chose to fictionalise one of history's great love affairs.'David Stacton's novel of the notorious ménage à trois between the fetching Lady Hamilton, her husband Sir William, and her lover, Lord Nelson, is a scintillating piece of historical fiction.' New York World-Telegram'Stacton's best book... written with epigrammatic wit and...

On a cold Northern Californian evening, high on a cliff in the lagoon township of Bolinas, a woman is running, barefoot, toward her open convertible. Behind her in the dark is the forbidding summer house where her reclusive husband now lies dead. She will drive to San Francisco, there to break the news to her domineering mother, since she has nowhere else to go. A scandal is in the offing - and even if it can be averted, a horde of family secrets are about to hauled into light.Firs...