#80 in Historical fiction
The Winter King
- 435
- Pages
- about 8 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The Winter King” is a gritty, realist retelling of the Arthur story, set in a Britain of quarrelling kingdoms after the Romans have left. Cornwell trades romance for mud, fading gods and brutal politics, and makes Arthur a figure of hope who is far from flawless. Some readers who came for the romantic legend were surprised and won over anyway. It opens “The Warlord Chronicles”, a trilogy for readers who like their myths told as history.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Winter King: A Novel of Arthur is the first novel of the Warlord Chronicles trilogy by Bernard Cornwell, originally published in the UK in 1995 by Penguin Group. The book is based on characters and plot elements from Arthurian myth, but considerably changed and re-worked.
Reading order · The Warlord Chronicles
Full order & progress →- The Winter KingThis book
8.18.1 / 10 - Enemy of God
8.38.3 / 10 - Excalibur: A Novel of Arthur
8.38.3 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.1 across 205 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 58% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Historical fiction average of 8.0. That is how 8.1 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 9.0 | 10 | 5% |
| Hardcover | 8.1 | 195 | 95% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Winter King?
It has 435 pages — longer than 53% of the ranked books in Historical fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Historical fiction — and a score of 8.1, the closest to this book.
