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The Best Fiction Books » Historical Fiction

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
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Wolf Hall

by Hilary Mantel

🏆 Winner of the 2009 Booker Prize

Recommendations from our site

“With Wolf Hall, I was right there in the Tudor era. Thomas Cromwell—or her version of Thomas Cromwell—really came alive for me. You live with him and his family. You have sympathy with him and his life and the way he operated. That’s what I want from books: that they take me into another world and immerse me in it…I forgot that she was a contemporary writer. I could have been reading something that was a journal of the times, it felt so real. It’s so clever how she uses the language. You’re not bogged down with the way they might have talked, but you have the rhythm of the language.” Read more...

The Best Historical Fiction Set in England

Lesley Thomson, Thriller and Crime Writer

“Hilary Mantel possesses an extraordinary historical imagination and her recreation of the world of the 1530s through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell is, I think, utterly convincing.” Read more...

The best books on Henry VII

Thomas Penn, Historian

“The Tudor monarchy has a big moment with England leaving the Church of Rome for love – that’s the moment every film and television writer is interested in. She turns it upside down.” Read more...

The Best Historical Novels

Vanora Bennett, Historical Novelist

Other books by Hilary Mantel

A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel

A Place of Greater Safety
by Hilary Mantel

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel

The Mirror and the Light
by Hilary Mantel

Fludd by Hilary Mantel

Fludd
by Hilary Mantel

Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Bring up the Bodies
by Hilary Mantel

Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel

Beyond Black
by Hilary Mantel

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