The Cloister and the Hearth

Charles Reade’s grand historical romance carries the reader across fifteenth-century Europe alongside Gerard Eliassoen, a gentle Dutch scribe and illuminator whose love for Margaret Brandt runs afoul of his grasping family. Separated from her and told by a lie that she is dead, Gerard wanders through Germany and Italy, tastes Rome at the height of the Renaissance, and finally takes holy orders, never knowing the truth. Reade built the book on real chronicles and letters, and readers slowly grasp that the couple are the future parents of Erasmus of Rotterdam. Sweeping, meticulously researched, and crowded with incident, it remains among the finest English historical novels. Free to read here as a PDF and EPUB download.