Wolf Hall
 |
|
| Author | Hilary Mantel |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical fiction |
| Publisher | Fourth Estate (UK) |
|
Publication date
|
30 April 2009 |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 672 |
| ISBN | |
| 823.92 | |
| LC Class | PR6063.A438 W65 2009 |
| Followed by | Bring Up the Bodies |
Wolf Hall (2009) is an historical novel by English author Hilary Mantel, published by Fourth Estate, named after the Seymour family 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 will be called The Mirror and the Light and is expected to cover the last four years of Cromwell's life.
Born to a working-class family of no position or name, Cromwell rose to become the right-hand man of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, adviser to the King. He survived Wolsey's fall from grace to eventually take his place as the most powerful of Henry's ministers. In that role, he observed turning points of English history, as Henry asserted his authority to declare his marriage annulled from Catherine of Aragon, married Anne Boleyn, broke from Rome, established the Church of England, and called for the dissolution of the monasteries.
Historical and literary accounts have not been kind to Cromwell; in Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons he is portrayed as the calculating, unprincipled opposite of Thomas More's honour and rectitude.
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