The Catholics

[Roy Hattersley] is very good: Catholics is a great read and spectacularly well-researched…. British Politics, especially the shipwrecked Labour Party, could do with a generation of Hattersleys – tough, committed, smart and cultivated. – Bryan Appleyard * Sunday Times *[An] elegantly written, sweeping account of Catholics in these islands from the Reformation to the present day. It’s a tale of high drama and high stakes, by turns horrifying, romantic and ultimately hopeful. – Peter Stanford * Observer *big-hearted, fair-minded, insightful…a joy to read – Frank Cottrell-Boyce * New Statesman *Enjoyable… Perfectly solid, sensible and often astute. – Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times *Hattersley narrates… with his characteristic energy… His talent for invective remains strong. – Gerard Degroot * Times *Hattersley offers a scholarly chronicle of heroism and holiness in post-Reformation Britain, when the age of Catholic saints and miracles was seen to survive against the odds. – Ian Thomson * Financial Times *Thoroughly entertaining… I heartily recommend this volume, which is written with great brio, intelligence and charm; and with a wistful distance from his subjects’ faith which I found very appealing. – A.N. Wilson * Catholic Herald *Hattersley… excels in describing political machinations… One must admire his courage, not to say his chutzpah, in undertaking a book of such enormous scope. – Michael Walsh * Tablet *Thoughtful and thought provoking, minutely researched and well-written * Choice *The author writes with authority… He engages with his material and shares his enthusiasm with the reader. But equally he is detached: he has no interest in covering up scandals or selling a party line. The engaged outsider becomes a compelling biographer, at once intrigued and underwhelmed by his subject-matter – Lavinia Byrne * Church Times *

Roy Hattersley was elected to Parliament in 1964. He served in Harold Wilson’s government and in Jim Callaghan’s Cabinet. In 1983 he became deputy leader of the Labour Party. As well as contributing to a host of national newspapers, he has written twenty-five books, including The Edwardians; Borrowed Time- the Story of Britain between the Wars; In Search of England; acclaimed biographies of John Wesley and Lloyd George, and, most recently, The Devonshires. Roy Hattersley has been Visiting Fellow of Harvard’s Institute of Politics and of Nuffield College, Oxford. In 2003 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.