Most Popular Books by Hilary Mantel

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 disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king''s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph? In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.

The brilliant #1 New York Times bestseller Named a best book of 2020 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, The Guardian, and many more With The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with her peerless, Booker Prize-winning novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage. 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 victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour. Cromwell, a man with only his wits to rely on, has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to the breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. All of England lies at his feet, ripe for innovation and religious reform. But as fortune’s wheel turns, Cromwell’s enemies are gathering in the shadows. The inevitable question remains: how long can anyone survive under Henry’s cruel and capricious gaze? Eagerly awaited and eight years in the making, The Mirror & the Light completes Cromwell’s journey from self-made man to one of the most feared, influential figures of his time. Portrayed by Mantel with pathos and terrific energy, Cromwell is as complex as he is unforgettable: a politician and a fixer, a husband and a father, a man who both defied and defined his age.

Now a major TV series The Sunday Times bestseller Shortlisted for the Women''s Prize for Fiction Longlisted for the Booker Prize ''It is a book not read, but lived'' Telegraph ''Her Cromwell novels are, for my money, the greatest English novels of this century'' Observer ''If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?'' The Mirror & The Light begins after the death of Anne Boleyn. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith''s son has knocked down everyone in his path: established at the right hand of Henry VIII, he is the second man in England. But what will you do, an astute witness asks, when the king turns on you, as sooner or later he turns on everyone close to him? Heralded as the greatest English novels of this century, the Wolf Hall trilogy has won two Booker Prizes and been adapted into hugely successful stage plays. The first two books, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, were transformed into a BAFTA- and Golden Globe-winning BBC television series, starring Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis. The cast now returns in the long-awaited concluding series, Wolf Hall: The Mirror & the Light. A Guardian Book of the Year * A Times Book of the Year * A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year * A Sunday Times Book of the Year * A New Statesman Book of the Year * A Spectator Book of the Year Sunday Times Bestseller (08/03/2020)

Hailed as a "writer of subtlety and depth," Hilary Mantel turns her dark genius on the world of psychics in this smart, unsettling novel (Joyce Carol Oates) A paragon of efficiency, Colette took the next natural step after finishing secretarial school by marrying a man who would do just fine. After a sobering, do-it-yourself divorce, Colette is at a loss for what to do next. Convinced that she is due an out-of-hand, life-affirming revelation, she strays into the realm of psychics and clairvoyants, hungry for a whisper to set her off in the right direction. At a psychic fair in Windsor she meets the charismatic Alison. Alison, the daughter of a prostitute, beleaguered during her childhood by the pressures of her connection to the spiritual world, lives in a different kind of solitude. She cannot escape the dead who speak to her, least of all the constant presence of Morris, her low-life spiritual guide. An expansive presence onstage, Alison at once feels her bond with Colette, inviting her to join her on the road as her personal assistant and companion. Troubles spiral out of control when the pair moves to a suburban wasteland in what was once the English countryside and take up with a spirit guide and his drowned therapist. It is not long before Alison''s connection to the place beyond black threatens to uproot their lives forever. This is Hilary Mantel at her finest- insightful, darkly comic, unorthodox, and thrilling to read.

Stephen King meets Muriel Spark in Hilary Mantel''s first novel. Evelyn Axona-medium by trade-and her half-wit daughter Muriel have become a social problem. Barricaded in their once-respectable house, they live amid festering rubbish, unhealthy smells-and secrets. They completely baffle Isabel Field, the social worker assigned to help them. But Isabel is only the most recent in a long line of people that find the Axons impossible. Meanwhile, Isabel has her own problems: a married lover, Colin. He is a history teacher to unresponsive children and father to a passel of his own horrible kids. With all this to worry about, how can Isabel even begin to understand what is going on in the Axon household? When Evelyn finally moves to def Muriel, and Muriel, in turn, acts to protect herself, the results are by turns hilarious and terrifying.

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year 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 University hall of residence. Interspersing accounts of her current position as a university student with recollections of her childhood and an ever difficult relationship with her longtime schoolmate Karina, Carmel reflects on a generation of girls desiring the power of men, but fearful of abandoning what is expected and proper. When these bright but confused young women land in late 1960s London, they are confronted with a slew of new preoccupations--sex, politics, food, and fertility--and a pointless grotesque tragedy of their own. Hilary Mantel''s magnificent novel examines the pressures on women during the early days of contemporary feminism to excel--but not be too successful--in England''s complex hierarchy of class and status.

The story of three young provincials of no great heritage who together helped to destroy a way of life and, in the process, destroyed themselves: Camille Desmoulins, bisexual and beautiful, charming, erratic, untrustworthy; Georges Jacques Danton, hugely but erotically ugly, a brilliant pragmatist who knew how to seize power and use it; and Maximilien Robespierre, "the rabid lamb," who would send his dearest friend to the guillotine. Each, none older than thirty-four, would die by the hand of the very revolution he had helped to bring into being.

The sequel to Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel''s Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, Bring Up the Bodies delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn. The basis for the TV show on BBC and PBS Masterpiece starring Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell. 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 noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice. At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel''s Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne''s head? Named a top 10 Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and The Washington Post

WINNER OF THE 2009 MAN BOOKER PRIZE WINNER OF THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE and the NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION and the COSTA NOVEL AWARD Now the inspiration for a BBC mini-series, starring Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis, and directed by Peter Kosminsky England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne, but he has no male heir. Despite opposition from the pope and most of Europe, he is determined to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his brilliant adviser, Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum and a deadlock. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. A political genius, a briber, a bully and a charmer, Cromwell has broken all the rules of a rigid society in his ascent to power, and he is preparing to break some more. Pitting himself against parliament, the political establishment and the papacy, he is prepared to reshape England to his own and Henry’s desires.

Now a major TV seriesWinner of the Man Booker Prize 2009Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2012Winner of the Costa Book of the Year 2012Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2013Shortlisted for the the Orange Prize 2009Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2009

Originally published: United Kingdom: Viking, 1994.

THE FINAL BOOK FROM ONE OF OUR GREATEST WRITERS In addition to her celebrated career as a novelist, Hilary Mantel contributed for years to newspapers and journals, unspooling stories from her own life and illuminating the world as she found it. “Ink is a generative fluid,” she explains. “If you don’t mean your words to breed consequences, don’t write at all.” A Memoir of My Former Self collects the finest of this writing over four decades. Her subjects are wide-ranging, sharply observed, and beautifully rendered. She discusses nationalism and her own sense of belonging; our dream life popping into our conscious life; the mythic legacy of Princess Diana; the many themes that feed into her novels—revolutionary France, psychics, Tudor England; and other novelists, from Jane Austen to V.S. Naipaul. She writes about her father and the man who replaced him; she writes fiercely and heartbreakingly about the battles with her health that she endured as a young woman, and the stifling years she found herself living in Saudi Arabia. Here, too, is her legendary essay “Royal Bodies,” on our endless fascination with the current royal family. From her unusual childhood to her all-consuming interest in Thomas Cromwell that grew into the Wolf Hall trilogy, A Memoir of My Former Self reveals the shape of Hilary Mantel’s life in her own luminous words, through “messages from people I used to be.” Filled with her singular wit and wisdom, it is essential reading from one of our greatest writers.

"In the wake of Hilary Mantel''s brilliant conclusion to her award-winning Wolf Hall trilogy, this collection of loosely autobiographical stories locates the transforming moments of a haunted childhood. Sharp and funny, these drawn-from-life stories begin in the 1950s in an insular northern village "scoured by bitter winds and rough gossip tongues." For the child narrator, the only way to survive is to get up, get on, get out. In "King Billy Is a Gentleman," the child must come to terms with the loss of a father and the puzzle of a fading Irish heritage. "Curved Is the Line of Beauty" is a story of friendship, faith, and a near-disaster in a scrap-yard. The title story sees our narrator ironing out her northern vowels with the help of an ex-actress with one lung and a Manchester accent. In "Third Floor Rising," she watches, amazed, as her mother carves out a stylish new identity. With a deceptively light touch, Mantel illuminates the poignant experiences of childhood that leave each of us forever changed"--

New York Times bestselling author Hilary Mantel, two-time winner of the Man Booker Prize, is one of the world’s most accomplished and acclaimed fiction writers. Giving Up the Ghost, is her dazzling memoir of a career blighted by physical pain in which her singular imagination supplied compensation for the life her body was denied. Selected by the New York Times as one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years “The story of my own childhood is a complicated sentence that I am always trying to finish, to finish and put behind me.” 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 patronizing psychiatric treatment and destructive surgery that left her without hope of children. Beset by pain and sadness, she decided to “write herself into being”—one novel after another. This wry and visceral memoir will certainly bring new converts to Mantel’s dark genius. “Mesmerizing.”—The New York Times

The New York Times bestselling collection, from the Man Booker prize-winner for Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, that has been called "scintillating" (New York Times Books Review), "breathtaking" (NPR), "exquisite" (The Chicago Tribune) and "otherworldly" (Washington Post). "A new Hilary Mantel book is an Event with a ‘capital ‘E.''"—NPR "A book of her short stories is like a little sweet treat."—USA Today (4 stars) "[Mantel is at] the top of her game."—Salon "Genius."—The Seattle Times One of the most accomplished, acclaimed, and garlanded writers, Hilary Mantel delivers a brilliant collection of contemporary stories 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. Stories of dislocation and family fracture, of whimsical infidelities and sudden deaths with sinister causes, brilliantly unsettle the reader in that unmistakably Mantel way. Cutting to the core of human experience, Mantel brutally and acutely writes about marriage, class, family, and sex. Unpredictable, diverse, and sometimes shocking, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher displays a magnificent writer at the peak of her powers.

A stunning collection of essays and memoir from twice Booker Prize winner and international bestseller Hilary Mantel, author of The Mirror and the Light

"She looked up and smiled. She had a face of feral sweetness, its color yellow; her eyes were long and dark, her mouth a taut bow, her nostrils upturned as if she were scenting the wind." In "How Shall I Know You?," a melancholic and ailing writer reluctantly travels east of London to give a lecture before a literary society. Mr. Simister, the organization''s secretary, lures the world-weary novelist turned biographer with promises of a modest stipend and lodging at a charming bed-and-breakfast for her trouble. Nevertheless, on that rainy day she meets Mr. Simister at the train station, she wonders why she ever agreed to come in the first place. Driving past steel-shuttered windows and Day-Glo banners, Mr. Simister takes the writer to her hotel for the evening, which turns out to be crumbling and isolated rather than picturesque. As she crosses the threshold into the dank stench of Eccles House she is faced with the feral porter, Louise, and suffers through an evening that may be more than she bargained for. From Hilary Mantel''s brilliant and darkly comic collection of contemporary stories, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, comes a tale told with her distinctive blend of subversive wit and gimlet-eyed characterization. "How Shall I Know You?" showcases the extraordinary genius of Hilary Mantel, called one of our "greatest living novelists" (NPR).

A two-ebook edition of Hilary Mantel’s bestselling novels: Wolf Hall, winner of the Man Booker Prize 2009, and Bring Up the Bodies, winner of the Man Booker Prize 2012. Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, the first two instalments in Hilary Mantel’s Tudor trilogy, have gathered readers and praise in equal and enormous measure. They have been credited with elevating historical fiction to new heights and animating a period of history many thought too well known to be made fresh. Through the eyes and ears of Thomas Cromwell, the books’ narrative prism, we are shown Tudor England, the court of King Henry VIII. Cromwell is a wholly original man: the son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a charmer, a bully, a man with a delicate and deadly expertise in manipulating people and events. In Wolf Hall we witness Cromwell’s rise, beginning as clerk to Cardinal Wolsey, Henry’s chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. He is soon to become his successor. By 1535, when the action of Bring Up the Bodies begins, Cromwell is Chief Minister to Henry, his fortunes having risen with those of Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife. Anne’s days, though, are marked. Cromwell watches as the king falls in love with silent, plain Jane Seymour, sensing what Henry’s affection will mean for his queen, for England, and for himself.

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 most unlikely of places, a superstitious town that understands little of romance or sentimentality, where bad blood between neighbors is ancient and impenetrable, miracles begin to bloom. No matter how copiously Father Angwin drinks while he confesses his broken faith, the level of the bottle does not drop. Although Fludd does not appear to be eating, the food on his plate disappears. Fludd becomes lover, gravedigger, and savior, transforming his dull office into a golden regency of decision, unashamed sensation, and unprecedented action. Knitting together the miraculous and the mundane, the dreadful and the ludicrous, Fludd is a tale of alchemy and transformation told with astonishing art, insight, humor, and wit.

Ten years after Muriel does her mother in, she gets out of the mental asylum ready for vengeance in a macabre, terrible twist. Through disguises, she''s able to torment those who sent her to the asylum.

Charles O''Brien is a bard and a giant. The cynical are moved by his romances; the craven stirred by his tales of epic deeds. But what of his own story, as he is led from Ireland to seek his fortune beyond the seas in England?

Winners of the Man Booker Prize and hugely successful stage plays in London''s West End and on Broadway, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies bring history to life for a whole new audience having now been adapted into a six-part television series by the BBC and PBS Masterpiece. "One of the greatest achievements of modern literature."—Man Booker Prize Committee Bring Up the Bodies unlocks the darkly glittering court of Henry VIII, where Thomas Cromwell is now chief minister. Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn and has fixed his eye on the demure Jane Seymour. Anne has failed to give England an heir and rumors of her infidelity creep through the court. Over a few terrifying weeks, to dislodge her from her throne, Cromwell ensnares Anne in a web of conspiracy—acting to save his life, serve his king and secure his position. But from the bloody theater of the queen''s final days, no one will emerge unscathed.

Winners of the Man Booker Prize and hugely successful stage plays in London''s West End and on Broadway, Hilary Mantel''s Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies bring history to life for a whole new audience having now been adapted into a six-part television series by the BBC and PBS Masterpiece. England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe oppose him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, master of deadly intrigue, and implacable in his ambition.

A taut and terrifying trip into a distorting mirror--a novel as tense, immediate, and chilling as the world it depicts. "A Middle Eastern Turn of the Screw with an insidious power to grip."-Time Out

Hilary Mantel''s bestselling and wildly acclaimed novels have been adapted, in two parts, for the stage.

WINNER OF THE 2012 MAN BOOKER PRIZE WINNER COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR and COSTA NOVEL AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE and the WOMEN''S PRIZE FOR FICTION Now the inspiration for a BBC mini-series, starring Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis, and directed by Peter Kosminsky Continuing what began in the Man Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall, we return to the court of Henry VIII. The volatile Anne Boleyn is now Queen, her career seemingly entwined with that of Cromwell. The split from the Catholic Church has left England dangerously isolated, and Anne has failed to give the king an heir. And when the King begins to fall in love with self-effacing Jane Seymour, the ever-pragmatic Cromwell must negotiate within an increasingly perilous court to satisfy Henry, defend the nation and, above all, to secure his own rise in the world. Neither minister nor king will emerge unscathed from the bloody theatre of Anne''s final days.

A brilliant collection of short stories from the double Man Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies.