The Awarding of the Franco-British Society Literary Prize 2023
 
“The Hundred Years War: Volume V: Triumph and illusion” by Jonathan Sumption
“Monet: the restless vision” by Jackie Wullschläger

A talk by both authors followed by drinks

Kings College London
5th February 2025

On 5th February 2025, The Rt Hon Dominic Grieve KC, President of the Franco-British Society, awarded two Franco-British Society Literary Prizes 2023 to Lord Jonathan Sumption for his book "The Hundred Years War: Volume V: Triumph and illusion" and Jackie Wullschläger for her book "Monet: the restless vision". 

The awarding was followed by a fascinating lecture by both authors and drinks.

We would like to thank both authors for this very inspiring lecture and Professor Richard Vinen, one of the book prize judges, for organising the event at Kings College London.
The Hundred Years War: Volume V: Triumph and illusion by Jonathan Sumption 
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​In this final volume of his epic history of the Hundred Years War, Jonathan Sumption tells the story of the collapse of the English dream of conquest, from the opening years of the reign of Henry VI until the loss of all of England's continental dominions except Calais thirty years later.

This sudden reversal of fortune was a seminal event in the history of the two principal nation-states of western Europe, ending four centuries of the English dynasty's presence in France and separating two countries whose fortunes had once been closely intertwined, creating a new sense of national identity in both. The legacy of these events would influence their divergent fortunes for centuries to come.
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Behind the clash of arms stood some of the most remarkable personalities of the age: the Duke of Bedford, the English Regent who ruled much of France; Charles VII of France, who patiently rebuilt his kingdom after the disasters of his early years; the captains populating the pages of Shakespeare - Fastolf, Montagu, Talbot, Dunois and, above all, the extraordinary figure of Joan of Arc who changed the course of the war in a few weeks at the age of seventeen.
Jonathan Sumption
Jonathan Sumption (Lord Sumption) began his career as a history fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, before leaving academic life in 1975 to retrain as a barrister. He practised commercial and public law between 1977 and 2011. In January 2012 he was appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, one of only five people since 1873 to have been appointed to the highest court directly from the practising bar. He retired from the court in December 2018, and in the following year delivered the BBC Reith Lectures on the theme of Law and the Decline of Politics. He is the author of number of historical works, including a five volume history of the hundred years war, which appeared between 1989 and 2022. He is currently working on a history of the wars of religion in sixteenth century France. He divides his time between homes in Greenwich and south-west France."
Monet: the restless vision by Jackie Wullschläger
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​In the course of a long and exceptionally creative life, Claude Monet revolutionized painting and made some of the most iconic images in western art. Misunderstood and mocked at the beginning of his career, he risked everything to pursue his original vision. Although close to starvation when he invented impressionism on the banks of the Seine in the 1860s-70s, in the following decades he emerged as the powerful leader of the new painting in Paris at one of its most exciting cultural moments. His symphonic series Haystacks, Poplars, and Rouen Cathedral brought wealth and renown. Then he withdrew to paint only the pond in his garden. The late Water Lilies, ignored during his lifetime, are now celebrated as pioneers of twentieth century modernism.
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Behind this great and famous artist is a volatile, voracious, nervous yet reckless man, largely unknown. Jackie Wullschläger's enthralling biography, based on thousands of never-before translated letters and unpublished sources, is the first account of Monet's turbulent private life and how it determined his expressive, sensuous, sensational painting. 
He was as obsessional in his love affairs as in his love of nature, and changed his art decisively three times when the woman at the centre of his life changed. Enduring devastating bereavements, he pushed the frontier of painting inward, to evoke memory and the passing of time. ​
Jackie Wullschläger 
Jackie Wullschläger was born in London in 1962. She is the Chief Art Critic of the Financial Times, where she has worked since 1984. She reviews widely in Europe, especially France and Italy.

Her books include Chagall: Love and Exile, which won the Spears Book Award 2009 and was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and the Duff Cooper Prize 2008, and Hans Christian Andersen: The Life of a Storyteller, which won the international Andersen Prize in 2002.  Monet: The Restless Vision  won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography 2024.  For her journalism Jackie received Italy's Positano Prize in 2023. She lives in London.