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The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah
by Charles King
From New York Times bestselling historian and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Charles King, the moving untold story of the eighteenth-century men and women behind the making of Handel's Messiah.
George Frideric Handel's Messiah is arguably the greatest piece of participatory art ever created. Adored by millions, it is performed each year by renowned choirs and orchestras, as well as by audiences singing along with the words on their cell phones.
But this work of triumphant joy was born in a worried age. Britain in the early Enlightenment was a place of astonishing creativity but also the seat of an empire mired in war, enslavement, and conflicts over everything from the legitimacy of government to the meaning of truth. Against this turbulent background, prize-winning author Charles King has crafted a cinematic drama of the troubled lives that shaped a masterpiece of hope.
Every Valley presents a depressive dissenter stirred to action by an ancient prophecy; an actress plagued by an abusive husband and public scorn; an Atlantic sea captain and penniless philanthropist; and an African Muslim man held captive in the American colonies and hatching a dangerous plan for getting back home. At center stage is Handel himself, composer to kings but, at midlife, in ill health and straining to keep an audience's attention. Set amid royal intrigue, theater scandals, and political conspiracy, Every Valley is entertaining, inspiring, unforgettable.
What are you reading this week? (7/17/2025)
This book combined my love of literature, history, and music: Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah by Charles King. I have enjoyed many books about the great pieces of music and art in nonfiction and historical fiction. Find that these types of books abo...
-Jolene_Blankley
"A swiftly moving, constantly engaging portrait of a beloved masterpiece." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Unfortunately, King doesn't always convincingly connect his character sketches back to the oratorio, which makes his central insight ('It took a universe of pain to make a musical monument to hope') feel somewhat forced. Despite the intriguing historical trivia, this doesn't quite hang together." —Publishers Weekly
"King loves his music and knows his history. The result is a lively, informative book on the birth and nurture of a classic." —Library Journal
"In Every Valley, Charles King shows in exquisite detail how George Frideric Handel's epic work, the Messiah, sprang not from one solitary composer's genius but out of the dramatic interplay of eighteenth-century lives and their times. Note by note, page by page, King takes us beyond an imagined Enlightenment to the sobering realities of a world that included the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade. Every Valley is a fascinating book, of interest to scholars and accessible to all readers." —Henry Louis Gates Jr., author of Stony the Road
"A delicious history of music, power, love, genius, royalty and adventure. A study of creativity and humanism, beautifully told, filled with charm and worldliness, deeply researched and as compelling as a symphony with a full choir of amazing characters who sing their songs around the central figure of Handel himself. Unforgettable." —Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The World: A Family History of Humanity
This information about Every Valley was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Charles King is the author of eight books, most recently Gods of the Upper Air, a New York Times bestseller, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award, and winner of the Francis Parkman Prize. His Odessa won a National Jewish Book Award. He is a professor of international affairs and government at Georgetown University.
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