Nicolson takes us into the political and theological intrigues of the day, and shows how a century on from the Protestant Reformation England was still in religious turmoil. Out of the clash between Catholic, Anglican and Puritan came a version of the Bible that combined scholarly skill, exalted language and an exquisite homeliness. We are shown the lives of the translators: some of them were humble country parsons; others were dazzling scholars, eminent bishops and worldly hypocrites.

Nicolson writes with clarity, confidence and panache, and through the window of the King James version we can glimpse the whole splendid and sordid world of Jacobean England. He ends with a lament for the passing of this splendid version. It's a pity he didn't visit the American south. There he would have found the King James version alive and well. The fact that this majestic translation thrives in the context of hootin' and hollerin' backwoods religion is one of those strange and hilarious anomalies of history. --Dwight Longenecker