"Historians' English," Philip Guedalla asserted, "is not a style; it is an occupational disease." To this verdict Thomas B. Costain would add a fervent Amen. The author of "The Black Rose" and "The Moneyman" has turned from his triumphs in historical fiction to write a popular history ["The Conquerors"]. "The picture that emerges," he submits in a pugnacious preface, "is, in my opinion, an honest and complete one." On this point some critics may have their reservations, but few will deny that the picture is detailed, diverting, and undeniably dramatic.

"The Conquerors" opens a series which will be known as "The Pageant of England." It covers, as the tedious textbook writers would say, the period from 1066 to 1216….

Thomas Costain belongs to the school of Michelet in his conviction that history ought to be a resurrection of the flesh, and he is in the great tradition of Scott and Dumas in his ability to make it fascinating. Every descriptive passage in this unflagging pageant is a triumph of sensuous detail….

A reviewer feels ungracious looking for flaws in such a brilliant and enjoyable performance. Yet professional historians, faithful to what Mr. Costain derides as their "sacred code," are certain to censure the latitude of some of his interpretations. For his own part, he goes out of his way to bait the academic brotherhood who would confine Clio to their airless seminars. They will retaliate no doubt by denouncing "The Conquerors" for errors of fact, with all the energy of experts hurling cannonballs at cobwebs. The quarrel is at best a profitless one. Mr. Costain could not have staged this lively pageant without drawing on the preliminary labor of innumerable scholars. If he omits footnotes and mocks at "old Ibid, that ubiquitous Man Friday of the historians" he assures us a moment later that he has authenticated all the scores of speeches which he quotes. His bibliography of almost two hundred secondary works shows how widely he ranged to garner the details on "currency, minting, monastic life, sheep raising, weaving, heraldry, architecture, archery" and other topics that form a background for his dialogue. If further evidence were needed, the neat and charming maps, the twenty-page index and the scrupulous proofreading are guaranties that this is no casual book although it may be aimed at "the casual reader."

Despite his raillery at "the traditions of the craft" and the plodding historians who bury the sublime in the meticulous, Mr. Costain is passionately devoted to Clio in his fashion.

What he forgets is that the more fluently that frail Muse speaks the dialects of the streets the more difficult she finds it to say no in any of them. This glowing book is the proper stuff of history, but not all of it as written is history proper, if Mr. Costain will permit the distinction.