In 2009, Hilary Mantel was an author already acclaimed for her fiction and memoir-writing, having been awarded, among other prizes, the MIND Book of the Year and the Cheltenham Prize, as well as being shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction. But the arrival of Wolf Hall would transform Mantel into a household name.
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Nothing makes a book more readable than discovering that a world a million miles away – or five hundred years ago – shares the same concerns as our own.
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The two Cromwell novels are teeming with dualities and divisions.
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One of the many enjoyable aspects of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies is how touchable the world is within: how we can smell, taste and feel those lives of nearly five hundred years ago. The dark hallways and smoky fires, the splash of barge oars in the Thames, the soft leather of unthinking wealth.
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There are few figures in British history as universally reviled as Thomas Cromwell. Held responsible for the suppression of the monasteries, the destruction of countless priceless books deemed too ‘popish’ and the attacking of statues, shrines and rood screens across the country, Cromwell has traditionally been viewed as a reforming bulldozer, manipulating the King’s hand to achieve religious changes against the Catholic Church at any cost.
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In preparation for The Mirror and the Light publishing next month, let us help you shine a light on the main characters of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy.
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Bringing the opulent, brutal Tudor world of Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII to glittering life, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies have thrilled and delighted readers, critics and prize judges alike. Both novels won the Man Booker Prize and have sold over five million copies across the globe.
Starting today, let us take you through the story so far, introduce you to the main players and explore the key themes.
The Mirror and the Light is out now.
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Picture Perfect month presents us with the opportunity to showcase the cover of one of the best books published in many of our lifetimes. And it’s #tbt, which means that we can root around in the archives all the way back to…2009.
Wolf Hall was the first of Hilary Mantel’s mould-breaking historical novels about Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s great minister. Mantel made Man Booker prize history by becoming the first woman and the first British writer to win the literary award twice, winning for both Wolf Hall and its sequel, Bring Up The Bodies (2012).
Receiving the second price, Mantel joked: ‘You wait 20 years for a Booker prize and then two come along at once’.
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