The Last of the Wine (1956) is an excellent historical novel by all the standards which we usually use to judge such work. Miss Renault's reconstruction of the past is vivid and exciting, for she has been able to make us believe in a world remote from ours, but one in which we recognize problems and people who reflect our own society. The Athens of Sokrates and Alkibiades comes alive for us because Miss Renault has made it consistent, colorful, and interesting. But unlike many historical novelists who use their recreation of the past as an excuse for sensationalism or pseudo-history, Miss Renault has used her setting as a reinforcement of theme and character. Sokrates and what he teaches are central to the meaning and to the structure of the novel, though he himself remains a secondary figure…. [She] gives us a real "flavor" of the period, since we are constantly seeing people and events with which we are familiar from other sources.
In addition, the period is fascinating not only because it includes Sokrates and the familiar members of his circle, but because of the political struggles which were destroying the Athenian state…. Miss Renault makes us realize, in a way that Plato does not, how much of what Sokrates said had a particular application to his own time as well as an abstract universality. (pp. 102-03)
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