The cloister and the hearth

Gerard, the hero of The Cloister and The Hearth, is modelled on all that is known of the father of Erasmus. His tragic love for Margaret Brandt takes him on adventures through Holland, Germany, France and Italy; always frustrated, by chance or by the design of his and Margaret’s enemies, in his desire for the domestic Hearth rather than the religious Cloister. Charles Reade wrote with passion against enforced chastity because, as an Oxford don, he was not able to marry: but what gives his romance magnificence is his exhaustive knowledge of life in the Middle Ages and the skill with which this is combined with a thrilling story.