A Scandal in Königsberg

It takes a confident historian to write a short book… the story is distilled to its powerful essence; he knows precisely what’s important… This small book is many things, but for me what shines brightest is a tale of two renegade preachers who understood women and love -- Gerard de Groot * The Times * Clark writes with his characteristic clarity and wit. This carefully researched microhistory clearly echoes our own time -- Anna von der Goltz * Financial Times * A Scandal in Konigsberg may be a miniature, but it is far from insubstantial... fans of tales of clerical skulduggery, of German history in general and culture wars avant la Bismarckian lettre in particular, plus anyone interested in how intolerance ruins lives, will enjoy Clark’s latest, not least because it is ‘short and lively” just like Frederick the Great’s ideal wars -- Jonathan Boff * The Spectator * A splendid exercise in historical recuperation. It illustrates the confusions, uncertainties and prejudices of a period when the horrors of revolution and warfare were still vivid in the European memory, and men and women were desperately searching for ordinary, lower-case enlightenment and spiritual guidance -- John Banville * Literary Review * The rise of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ in our own time… lend the story revealed by the files in the Geheimes Staatsarchiv an unexpected contemporary relevance … Clark tells this engrossing story with all his usual narrative verve and stylistic brilliance -- Richard J. Evans * Times Literary Supplement * Konigsburg (is) a kind of Prussian Atlantis, a quasi-mythical place everyone gets to build in their own imagination without reality getting in the way… What makes Clark’s telling so effective is the way he brings this seemingly obscure episode to life without ever overplaying its strangeness -- Katja Hoyer * Zeitgeist * Clark uses a scandal that befell Königsberg in the 1830s to tell a story of Europe and religion and the battle between reason and imagination. Everything here is extraordinary… Clark has tremendous fun in this setting, and not just because of its soap opera-ish potential -- Peter Hoskin * Englesberg Ideas * Clark’s narrative impressively interweaves the stories of the men and women drawn into Ebel’s circle with the political, religious and intellectual upheavals of the time -- Ian Cooper * The Tablet * Rich, subtle and provocative -- Matthew Lyons * The Telegraph * Its plot of history is small, but its horizons are enormous -- What to read in September * Prospect *