The classic novel by "Irish master" ( New Yorker ) and Booker Prize–winner John Banville brings to life the dramatic and surprising world of sixteenth-century astronomer Nicolas Copernicus and the theory that would shatter the medieval view of the universe. Sixteenth-century Europe is teeming with change and controversy: wars are being waged by princes and bishops and the repercussions of Luther are being felt through a convulsing Germany. In a remote corner of Poland, a modest canon is practicing medicine and studying the heavens, preparing a theory that will shatter the medieval view of the universe. In this astonishing work of historical imagination, John Banville offers a vivid portrait of a man of painful reticence. For, in a world that is equal parts splendor and barbarism, an obscure cleric who seeks “the secret music of the universe” poses a most devastating threat. "A tour de force… Exciting, beautifully written and astonishingly redolent of the late medieval world." — The Times