Earthly Powers

Anthony Burgess's epic masterpiece follows the lives of two men who each represent different kinds of earthly power. Kenneth Toomey is an eminent novelist, a man who has outlived his contemporaries to survive into luxurious old age as a celebrity of dubious notoriety. Don Carlo Campanati is a man of God, who rises through the Vatican as a subtle negotiator and shrewd manipulator to become the controversial architect of church revolution and a candidate for sainthood.

Through the lives of these two men, related to each other not only by family ties but also by sympathy, genius and a deep common understanding of mankind's frailties, Burgess explores the very essence of power.