A Place of Greater Safety

Beginning Hilary Mantel’s A Place of Greater Safety series, this first volume immerses readers in the French Revolution with vivid historical fiction. Mantel, a double Booker Prize-winning author, crafts a classic biographical and political narrative exploring the intersecting lives of Georges-Jacques Danton, Maximilien Robespierre, and Camille Desmoulins, key figures in revolutionary France.

Danton is zealous and debt-ridden, Robespierre diligent yet terrified of violence, and Desmoulins a brilliant but erratic orator. As these men navigate the intoxicating allure of power, the high ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity curdle into something far darker. The novel unflinchingly depicts the descent into the Terror, making this volume a profound study of political freedom and its modern consequences.