Author
Hilary Mantel
Birth Date
July 6, 1952
(70 Years)
Death Date
September 22, 2022
Associated Country
United Kingdom
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) was a celebrated English novelist and essayist, widely regarded as one of the greatest historical fiction writers of her time. She was born in Glossop and studied law before turning to writing. Her work is known for its psychological depth, sharp insight, and richly detailed portrayal of history.
Mantel achieved international acclaim with her Thomas Cromwell trilogy—Wolf Hall (2009), Bring Up the Bodies (2012), and The Mirror and the Light (2020). The first two novels each won the Booker Prize, making her the first woman to win the prize twice. Through these works, she reimagined the life of Thomas Cromwell with nuance and complexity, reshaping modern historical fiction.
In addition to her historical novels, Mantel wrote memoir, essays, and other fiction, including Beyond Black and Giving Up the Ghost. Her writing is celebrated for its elegance, intelligence, and ability to bring the past vividly to life. She remains a towering figure in contemporary literature.
Mantel achieved international acclaim with her Thomas Cromwell trilogy—Wolf Hall (2009), Bring Up the Bodies (2012), and The Mirror and the Light (2020). The first two novels each won the Booker Prize, making her the first woman to win the prize twice. Through these works, she reimagined the life of Thomas Cromwell with nuance and complexity, reshaping modern historical fiction.
In addition to her historical novels, Mantel wrote memoir, essays, and other fiction, including Beyond Black and Giving Up the Ghost. Her writing is celebrated for its elegance, intelligence, and ability to bring the past vividly to life. She remains a towering figure in contemporary literature.
Books
As well as her celebrated career as a novelist, Hilary Mantel long contributed to newspapers and journals, unspooling stories from her own life and illuminating the world as she found it. This strand...
Learning to Talk 2023
In the wake of Hilary Mantel’s brilliant conclusion to her award-winning Wolf Hall trilogy, Learning to Talk is a collection of loosely autobiographical stories that locates the transforming moments...
Thomas Cromwell, Book 3
The story begins in May 1536: Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Cromwell breakfasts with the...
Mantel Pieces 2021
In 1987, when Hilary Mantel was first published in the London Review of Books, she wrote to the editor, Karl Miller, ‘I have no critical training whatsoever, so I am forced to be more brisk and breezy...
In The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, Hilary Mantel's trademark gifts of penetrating characterization, unsparing eye, and rascally intelligence are once again fully on display, with stories of...
Bring Up the Bodies 2012
Thomas Cromwell, Book 2
Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the...
Axon Family, Book 1
Evelyn Axon and her daughter, Muriel, barricaded in their once-respectable house, are surrounded by years of garbage―and plenty of family secrets, to boot. They completely baffle Isabel Field, the...
Vacant Possession 2010
Axon Family, Book 2
Ten years have passed since Muriel Axon was locked away for society's protection, but psychiatric confinement has only increased her malice and ingenuity. At last free, she sets into motion an...
Wolf Hall 2009
Thomas Cromwell, Book 1
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political power.
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from...
The Giant, O'brien 2007
London, 1782: center of science and commerce, home to the newly rich and the desperately poor. In the midst of it all is the Giant, O'Brien, a freak of nature, a man of song and story who trusts in...
It was the year after Chappaquiddick, and all spring Carmel McBain had watery dreams about the disaster. Now she, Karina, and Julianne were escaping the dreary English countryside for a London...
It is 1789, and three young provincials have come to Paris to make their way. Georges-Jacques Danton, an ambitious young lawyer, is energetic, pragmatic, debt-ridden--and hugely but erotically ugly....
Beyond Black 2006
Colette and Alison are unlikely cohorts: one a shy, drab beanpole of an assistant, the other a charismatic, corpulent psychic whose connection to the spiritual world torments her. When they meet at a...
Giving Up the Ghost 2004
In postwar rural England, Hilary Mantel grew up convinced that the most extraordinary feats were within her grasp. But at nineteen, she became ill. Through years of misdiagnosis, she suffered...
When Frances Shore moves to Saudi Arabia, she settles in a nondescript sublet, sure that common sense and an open mind will serve her well with her Muslim neighbors. But in the dim, airless flat,...
Fludd 2000
One dark and stormy night in 1956, a stranger named Fludd mysteriously turns up in the dismal village of Fetherhoughton. He is the curate sent by the bishop to assist Father Angwin-or is he? In the...
Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. Thirty years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with...