The plot revolves around the destruction of the Knights Templar, and the Tour de Nesle affair, both events involving lots of brutal torture and horrifying executions, with hugely significant historical effects. Reading this novel it can be hard to remember that Philip IV, called the Fair, was a real person, that a human could be the way he was, do the things he did they way he did, and ultimately die almost arbitrarily, not in battle, nor poisoned by rivals, or even old and respected, but from an aneurysm. My copy of The Iron King is actually introduced by Martin himself, who credits Druon as a major inspiration for his fantasy series: 'the Starks and Lannisters have nothing on the Capets and Plantagenets.' Somehow the true story is the more horrifying because the characters were real - we can go to their tombs, and see what's left of them. Martin's Game of Thrones became a global phenomenon. Today we publish some of the world's foremost authors, from Nobel prize-winners to worldwide bestsellers recent successes including the Booker-winning Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel, and George RR Martin's blockbusting A Song of Ice and Fire series.Maurice Druon's series The Accursed Kings, of which The Iron King is the first novel, is woefully obscure in the Anglosphere - though less so since George R. The worldwide group was formed following News Corp's 1990 acquisition of William Collins & Sons. In 1987, Harper & Row, as it had then become, was acquired by News Corporation.

The original Harper Brothers Company was established in New York City in 1817 and over the years published the works of Mark Twain, the Bronte Sisters, Thackeray, Dickens, John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

In the UK, the Glasgow-based William Collins & Sons was founded in 1819 and published a range of bibles, atlases and dictionaries, later including classic authors HG Wells, Agatha Christie, JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis. With a heritage stretching back nearly 200 years, HarperCollins is one of the world's foremost English-language publishers, offering the best quality content right across the spectrum, from cutting-edge contemporary fiction to digital hymnbooks and pretty much everything in between.

The iron king by maurice druon