Wolf Hall
by Hilary Mantel
Wolf Hall is the first book in Hilary Mantel’s highly acclaimed Thomas Cromwell trilogy. Both Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies—won the Booker Prize. The Mirror and the Light, the final part of the trilogy was released in 2020.
Recommendations from our site
“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...
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...
Vanora Bennett recommends the best Historical Fiction
Vanora Bennett, Historical Novelist
Now we’re at Wolf Hall, the first book in historical novelist Hilary Mantel’s trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, henchman to King Henry VIII, who spearheaded the Reformation in England. It’s a very, very convincing depiction of life in 1530s England and it’s hard not to completely believe in—and sympathise with—the Thomas Cromwell character she creates. Given this book also won the Booker Prize, Wolf Hall scores highly both as history and as fiction.
The only drawback is that you’re reading about Henry VIII, a horrible man, set in Tudor times, which, in the UK at least, is a period you’re already studied multiple times at school. With the whole of history to choose from, do you want to devote more time to the wife-killing king and the man who helped him achieve his goals? The trilogy is so well done that the answer probably remains yes, but possibly not if you’re a slow reader.
