Book Bearings
Cover of Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Wolf Hall

  • 653 pages · about 11 hours
  • First published 2009
  • 43 editions

Bookshop.org links may earn us a commission. It supports independent bookstores and costs you nothing.

1 About this book

Wolf Hall (2009) is a historical novel by English author Hilary Mantel, published by Fourth Estate, named after the Seymour family's seat of Wolfhall, or Wulfhall, in Wiltshire. Set in the period from 1500 to 1535, Wolf Hall is a sympathetic fictionalised biography documenting the rapid rise to power of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII through to the death of Sir Thomas More. The novel won both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2012, The Observer named it as one of "The 10 best historical novels".

The book is the first in a trilogy; the sequel Bring Up the Bodies was published in 2012. The last book in the trilogy is The Mirror and the Light (2020), which covers the last four years of Cromwell's life.

Good for readers who want: historical fiction and a long read.

  • Historical fiction
  • Biographical fiction
  • Man Booker Prize Winner
  • Great britain
  • Relationships
  • Courts and courtiers

2 About Hilary Mantel

1952–2022

Dame Hilary Mary Mantel ( man-TEL; born Thompson; 6 July 1952 – 22 September 2022) was a British writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories. Her first published novel, Every Day Is Mother's Day, was released in 1985. She went on to write 12 novels, two collections of short stories, a memoir, and numerous articles and opinion pieces.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

3 More by Hilary Mantel

4 Similar books

Find a book that fits your moment