The Last Kingdom was published by HarperCollins in 2004 as the first of the Saxon Stories (later known as the Last Kingdom series), which eventually comprised thirteen novels completed in 2020. The series follows Uhtred of Bebbanburg from boyhood in 866 AD to old age in the 930s, covering the period in which the separate Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England were unified into a single nation.
Uhtred is the son of an ealdorman of Northumbria. When the Danes invade and kill his father, the ten-year-old Uhtred is captured and raised by the Danish warlord Ragnar. He learns to fight like a Dane, worship the Norse gods, and think of the Danes as his people. But when Ragnar is murdered, Uhtred is thrown into the world of Saxon politics and finds himself in the service of Alfred of Wessex — a brilliant, pious, sickly king whose vision of a unified Christian England conflicts with everything Uhtred values.
The tension between Uhtred’s Danish soul and his Saxon obligations drives the entire series. He loves the Danes’ freedom, their ferocity, their directness; he chafes under Alfred’s Christianity, his legalism, his willingness to sacrifice individuals for strategic advantage. But Uhtred also recognizes that Alfred is building something unprecedented — a nation, a legal system, a literate civilization — and that the Danish way, for all its vitality, leads to fragmentation and eventual defeat.
The BBC/Netflix television adaptation (2015–2022), starring Alexander Dreymon as Uhtred, became one of the most successful historical dramas of its era and brought Cornwell’s work to an audience of millions.
Collecting The Last Kingdom
First edition (HarperCollins, London, 2004): Cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $50–$150
- Very good: $20–$50
- Signed: $75–$200