Sir Thomas More is--in the phrase associated with him since the early sixteenth century--a man for all seasons. World renowned as the author of Utopia (1516), he wrote humanist, polemical, and spiritual works in Latin and English and thereby contributed to the development of the vernacular. A lawyer, politician, humanist, and statesman--for two and a half years lord chancellor--he was executed on grounds of high treason; he died a martyr, and he was canonized by the Roman Catholic church in 1935. More's character and personality continue to attract, inspire, challenge, and perplex. His life and death, his beliefs, and his writings are the subjects of countless interpretations.

More was the first son and second child of John More, a successful London lawyer, and Agnes Graunger More, whose father, Sir Thomas Graunger, was also a lawyer. He was born on 6 or 7 February 1477 or 1478; contradictions in John More's entry for his son's...