The first book in Bernard Cornwell’s epic and bestselling series on the making of England and the fate of his great hero, Uhtred of Bebbanburg. BBC2’s major Autumn 2015 TV show THE LAST KINGDOM is based on the first two books in the series. Uhtred is an English boy, born into the aristocracy of ninth-century Northumbria. Orphaned at ten, he is captured and adopted by a Dane and taught the Viking ways. Yet Uhtred's fate is indissolubly bound up with Alfred, King of Wessex, who rules over the only English kingdom to survive the Danish assault.