The Alteration
Encyclopedia
The Alteration is a 1976 alternate history novel by Kingsley Amis
Kingsley Amis
Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism...

, set in a parallel universe
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...

 in which the Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

 did not take place. It won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1977.

Creative origins

In his biography of Kingsley Amis, Richard Bradford devotes a chapter to The Alteration, its origins and context within the author's life. In 1973, Amis had heard a reproduction of the voice of Alessandro Moreschi
Alessandro Moreschi
Alessandro Moreschi was the most famous castrato singer of the late 19th century, and the only castrato of the classic bel canto tradition to make solo sound recordings.-Life:...

, the last known European castrato
Castrato
A castrato is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity.Castration before puberty prevents a boy's...

. Amis disagreed with the proposition that Moreschi's performance could be considered "great art," because Moreschi had been castrated, and "true" art centred on the celebration of human sexuality.

Bradford argues that this was a matter of considerable importance for Amis himself, as he may have been suffering from impotence or sexual dysfunction in his marriage, due to advancing age. Thus, he took exception to Roman Catholic teaching, based as it was in a magisterium
Magisterium
In the Catholic Church the Magisterium is the teaching authority of the Church. This authority is understood to be embodied in the episcopacy, which is the aggregation of the current bishops of the Church in union with the Pope, led by the Bishop of Rome , who has authority over the bishops,...

 of celibate men who had never undertaken sexual pleasure within their lives.

Plot introduction

The main character, ten-year-old Hubert Anvil, is a chorister at St George's Basilica, Coverley (real world Cowley
Cowley, Oxford
Cowley in Oxford, England, is a residential and industrial area that forms a small conurbation within greater Oxford. Cowley's neighbours are central Oxford to the northwest, Rose Hill and Blackbird Leys to the south, New Headington to the north and the villages of Horspath and Garsington across...

), for whom tragedy beckons when his teachers and the Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 hierarchy, all the way up to the Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

 himself, decree that the boy's superb voice is too precious to sacrifice to puberty
Puberty
Puberty is the process of physical changes by which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of reproduction, as initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads; the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a boy...

. Despite his own misgivings, he must undergo castration
Castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...

, the alteration of the title. Insight into this world is offered during Anvil's abortive escape from church authorities, with references to alternate world versions of known political and cultural figures. Hubert's mother carries on an illicit affair with the family chaplain, and his brother, Anthony, is a liberal dissident from repressive church policies.

In this timeline, there are two pivotal divergences from known history. Prince Arthur Tudor
Arthur, Prince of Wales
Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales was the first son of King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York, and therefore, heir to the throne of England. As he predeceased his father, Arthur never became king...

 and Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon , also known as Katherine or Katharine, was Queen consort of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII of England and Princess of Wales as the wife to Arthur, Prince of Wales...

's short-lived union produced a son, Stephen II of England. When Henry of York
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

 ("the Abominable") tried to usurp his nephew's throne, there was a papal crusade to restore the rightful heir, culminating in the "Holy Victory" at Coverley, which was designated as the ecclesiastical capital of England.

Secondly, the Protestant Reformation did not take place as Martin Luther
Martin Luther
Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...

 was reconciled to the Roman Catholic Church and later became Pope Germanian I. Luther's anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...

 may have infected this history to a greater extent during his papacy, as the novel discloses that Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

 are forced to seclude themselves and wear yellow stars to advertise their religious and ethnic identity. In this history, Thomas More
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...

 did not marry, and ascended to the Papacy as Pope Hadrian VII.

While the Papacy still holds sway across Western Europe, in this version of the twentieth century Protestantism is limited to the breakaway Republic of New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

, which includes such locations as Cranmeria (named after Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build a favourable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon which resulted in the separation of the English Church from...

), Hussville (named for Jan Huss), Waldensia (Waldensians
Waldensians
Waldensians, Waldenses or Vaudois are names for a Christian movement of the later Middle Ages, descendants of which still exist in various regions, primarily in North-Western Italy. There is considerable uncertainty about the earlier history of the Waldenses because of a lack of extant source...

) and Wyclif City (John Wycliffe
John Wycliffe
John Wycliffe was an English Scholastic philosopher, theologian, lay preacher, translator, reformer and university teacher who was known as an early dissident in the Roman Catholic Church during the 14th century. His followers were known as Lollards, a somewhat rebellious movement, which preached...

). The head of the schismatic
Schism (religion)
A schism , from Greek σχίσμα, skhísma , is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization or movement religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a break of communion between two sections of Christianity that were previously a single body, or to a division within...

 church in New England is the Archpresbyter
Presbyterianism
Presbyterianism refers to a number of Christian churches adhering to the Calvinist theological tradition within Protestantism, which are organized according to a characteristic Presbyterian polity. Presbyterian theology typically emphasizes the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Scriptures,...

 of Arnoldstown (named after Benedict Arnold
Benedict Arnold
Benedict Arnold V was a general during the American Revolutionary War. He began the war in the Continental Army but later defected to the British Army. While a general on the American side, he obtained command of the fort at West Point, New York, and plotted to surrender it to the British forces...

). Joseph Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

 held office as "First Citizen" from 1914–1918, while Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

 was an acclaimed general who died at the moment of his victory over the combined forces of Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

 and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 in the war of 1848-1850. We learn towards the end of the book that this Protestant state also has unpleasant features, such as practising apartheid towards Native Americans
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

 and a harsh penal system.

England dominates the British Isles: for example, Ireland is called "West England". Instead of parliamentary democracy, the English Isles are administered by a Convocation
Convocation
A Convocation is a group of people formally assembled for a special purpose.- University use :....

 of clergy accountable to the Catholic hierarchy. The rule of the Church is absolute and totalitarian, controlled by the Holy Office, a sort of KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...

 or Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

 equivalent. (Monsignors Henricus and Laurentius – Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...

 and Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a Georgian Soviet politician and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and Deputy Premier in the postwar years ....

 – are mentioned in passing.)

The state of the world is illustrated in a description of national, clerical and royal figures at the funeral of Stephen III, late King of England, which opens the book. There is reference to the Kings of Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 and Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

, which suggests that no Italian nation-state exists in this history due to the temporal strength of the Papacy. The Crown Prince of Muscovy is also mentioned, suggesting that Tsarism holds sway, and the Dauphin leads one to conclude that the French monarchy is also still in existence. Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 is a nation-state, known as Almaigne and ruled by an Emperor, although it may not have exactly the same national boundaries. The "Vicar General" of the "Emperor Patriarch" of Candia
Candia
-Places:* The old Venetian name for Heraklion, Crete* Kingdom of Candia, colony of the Republic of Venice * Candia Canavese, Italy* Candia Lomellina, Italy...

 suggests that the Greek Orthodox Church
Greek Orthodox Church
The Greek Orthodox Church is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity sharing a common cultural tradition whose liturgy is also traditionally conducted in Koine Greek, the original language of the New Testament...

 survives as a separate ecclesiastical jurisdiction, albeit exiled from its native Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 (which is still under Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 domination) and with its headquarters in Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

. Finally, this opening section cites the "Viceroys" of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 and New Spain
New Spain
New Spain, formally called the Viceroyalty of New Spain , was a viceroyalty of the Spanish colonial empire, comprising primarily territories in what was known then as 'América Septentrional' or North America. Its capital was Mexico City, formerly Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire...

, suggesting that colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...

 and direct imperialism
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...

 are still realities here.

A Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

/Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 cold war
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

 exists between the Papacy and Ottoman Empire. Pope John XXIV is a Machiavellian Yorkshireman, who allows the cold war to heat up as a Malthusian plan to resolve Europe's population growth
Population growth
Population growth is the change in a population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals of any species in a population using "per unit time" for measurement....

 – the church has access to bacteriological warfare as an alternative to birth control
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...

, whose prior papal prohibition John XXIV opposes. The book's coda, set in 1991, fifteen years after the events of the main body of the book, reveals that events have turned out as the Pope planned. Europe's surplus population has become cannon fodder for the war, which ended in a narrow victory, despite mention that the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 got as far as Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

. However, one of Hubert's childhood friends, Decuman, is mentioned as being among the occupation troops in Adrianople in far western Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, suggesting that the Ottomans either lost the war, or at least were forced to make significant territorial concessions to the Catholic West.

William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

's work was suppressed in this history, although Thomas Kyd
Thomas Kyd
Thomas Kyd was an English dramatist, the author of The Spanish Tragedy, and one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama....

's original text of Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...

has survived, and is still performed in 1976. Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...

 lived until 1853, at which point he set fire to Castel Gandolfo
Castel Gandolfo
Castel Gandolfo is a small Italian town or comune in Lazio that occupies a height overlooking Lake Albano about 15 miles south-east of Rome, on the Alban Hills. It is best known as the summer residence of the Pope. It is an Italian town with the population of 8834...

 outside Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 and perished. By contrast, Mozart, Beethoven, Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...

, Hockney
David Hockney
David Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....

 and Holman Hunt have allowed their talents to submit to religious authority. Edward Bradford argues that the choice of authors and musicians here is not meant to imply Amis's own preferences, but questions the value of art subordinated to a destructive ideology that represses sexual freedom and human choice. Underscoring the clerical domination of this world, Hubert's small collection of books includes a set of Father Bond novels (an amalgam of Father Brown
Father Brown
Father Brown is a fictional character created by English novelist G. K. Chesterton, who stars in 52 short stories, later compiled in five books. Chesterton based the character on Father John O'Connor , a parish priest in Bradford who was involved in Chesterton's conversion to Catholicism in 1922...

 and James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...

), as well as Lord of the Chalices (The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...

), Saint Lemuel's Travels (Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver's Travels
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, better known simply as Gulliver's Travels , is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of...

), and The Wind in the Cloisters (Wind in the Willows). There is also reference to a Monsignor Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...

 of the Jesuits, and A. J. Ayer is Professor of Dogmatic Theology at New College, Oxford
New College, Oxford
New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.- Overview :The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always...

.

"Science" is literally a dirty word, and while "invention" is not, the scope of inventors is severely limited. Electricity has been banned; the only form of internal combustion engine permitted is the Diesel
Diesel engine
A diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber...

, which works without a spark. Some of the incidental pleasure of the book is in the "alternative technology" reminiscent of Amis's friend and fellow-author Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison
Harry Harrison is an American science fiction author best known for his character the Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! , the basis for the film Soylent Green...

, such as the swish train that takes characters from London to Rome in just seven hours, via Thomas Sopwith's
Thomas Sopwith
Sir Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith, CBE, Hon FRAeS was an English aviation pioneer and yachtsman.-Early life:...

 Channel Bridge.

Allusion to known historical figures include the political scene in Britain in the 1970s, and may reflect Amis's increasingly conservative attitudes. For example, Lord Stansgate (Tony Benn
Tony Benn
Anthony Neil Wedgwood "Tony" Benn, PC is a British Labour Party politician and a former MP and Cabinet Minister.His successful campaign to renounce his hereditary peerage was instrumental in the creation of the Peerage Act 1963...

) presides over the Holy Office, and Officers Michael Foot
Michael Foot
Michael Mackintosh Foot, FRSL, PC was a British Labour Party politician, journalist and author, who was a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1955 and from 1960 until 1992...

 and Corin Redgrave
Corin Redgrave
Corin William Redgrave was an English actor and political activist.-Early life:Redgrave was born in Marylebone, London, the only son and middle child of actors Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson...

 are two of its feared operatives. Pope John XXIV is a thinly disguised Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...

. Other references are more obscure; opera-lovers with a good knowledge of Latin will, however, be able to identify the two castrati from the Vatican, Federicus Mirabilis and Lupigradus Viaventosa, as the German singers Fritz Wunderlich
Fritz Wunderlich
Friedrich "Fritz" Karl Otto Wunderlich was a German lyric tenor, famed for his singing of the Mozart repertory and Italian and German opera and lieder. He died in an accident when he was only 35...

 and Wolfgang Windgassen
Wolfgang Windgassen
Wolfgang Windgassen was a tenor internationally known for his performances in Wagner operas.-Life and career:...

, both recently deceased when Amis was writing.

Although much of the interest of the novel, and much of the fun, lies in the details of the alternative world Amis has created, the plot is a strong one and many of the characters are vividly drawn and believable in such a setting. There is some remarkable insight into musical creativity (Hubert had the possibility of becoming as gifted a composer as he was a gifted singer) and the ways in which strong minded liberals can preserve their integrity under a theocracy are illustrated by Hubert's older brother Anthony and by the older chorister Decuman.

Alternate parallel-world novels in The Alteration

Just as The Man in the High Castle
The Man in the High Castle
The Man in the High Castle is a science fiction alternate history novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. It won a Hugo Award in 1963 and has since been translated into many languages....

features a book entitled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, depicting a world (but not our own) in which the Allies won World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, so The Alteration refers to an alternate history book by one Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...

 entitled The Man in the High Castle
The Man in the High Castle
The Man in the High Castle is a science fiction alternate history novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. It won a Hugo Award in 1963 and has since been translated into many languages....

. This book-within-a-book depicts a world in which Stephen II was never born, so the "Holy Victory" never happened, and Henry VIII became king legitimately. As in our world, Henry married Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon , also known as Katherine or Katharine, was Queen consort of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII of England and Princess of Wales as the wife to Arthur, Prince of Wales...

, but their son Henry, Duke of Cornwall
Henry, Duke of Cornwall
Henry, Duke of Cornwall was the name of two sons of King Henry VIII of England and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Henry and Catherine had five children, but only Princess Mary survived infancy.-The first Henry, Duke of Cornwall:...

 survived infancy, becoming Henry IX in 1547. Martin Luther
Martin Luther
Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...

 became "schismatic" in this world, as he did in our own, and a "Union" of former English North American colonies breaks away in 1848 instead of 1776.

Galliard, an alternate-universe counterpart to Keith Roberts's
Keith Roberts
Keith John Kingston Roberts , was an English science fiction author. He began publishing with two stories in the September 1964 issue of Science Fantasy magazine, "Anita" and "Escapism.Several of his early stories were written using the pseudonym...

 Pavane
Pavane (novel)
Pavane by Keith Roberts is an alternate history science fiction fix-up novel first published by Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd in 1968. Most of the original stories were published in Science Fantasy...

, is also mentioned in this tribute to the subgenre. (The Galliard
Galliard
The galliard was a form of Renaissance dance and music popular all over Europe in the 16th century. It is mentioned in dance manuals from England, France, Spain, Germany and Italy, among others....

 and the Pavane
Pavane
The pavane, pavan, paven, pavin, pavian, pavine, or pavyn is a slow processional dance common in Europe during the 16th century .A pavane is a slow piece of music which is danced to in pairs....

 were both forms of Renaissance dance
Renaissance dance
Renaissance dances belong to the broad group of historical dances.During the Renaissance period, there was a distinction between country dances and court dances. Court dances required the dancers to have been trained and were often for display and entertainment, whereas country dances could be...

.)
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