This book is part of the "Everyman" series which has been re-set with wide margins and easy-to-read type and includes an introduction and a chronology of the author. It contains the complete works of the story-teller Liudprand of Cremona. Beginning with the "Chronicle of Otto's Reign", these are the works of a behind-the-scenes kingmaker - it was Liudprand of Cremona who engineered Otto's coronation as Emperor of the West. As an insider of Otto's Court, he was sent on an ill-fated "Embassy to Constantinople" to arrange a dynastic marriage, and his account of the grotesque Byzantine Emperor, the court and city is vivid, comic and gossipy. His history of Europe between 887 and 979 in the "Antipodosis" concludes this summary of an era.