Where to Start with Hilary Mantel: A Reading Guide
Where to start with Hilary Mantel — whether to begin with Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, or The Mirror and the Light. A complete reading guide to Mantel's novels.
Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) is the greatest British historical novelist of the modern era — the author of the Thomas Cromwell trilogy (Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, The Mirror and the Light), which is widely considered one of the supreme achievements of contemporary British fiction. Her prose style — distinctive, precise, psychologically intense — transformed the historical novel from a genre of costume and adventure into a medium for the deepest literary exploration of power, consciousness, and survival.
Where to Start
The Beginning: Wolf Hall (2009)
The essential first book and the only place to begin. Thomas Cromwell — blacksmith’s son, cloth merchant, soldier, lawyer, eventual chief minister of Henry VIII — is introduced in childhood, seen through the eyes of Mantel’s distinctive narrative ‘he’: a third-person narration that stays so close to Cromwell’s consciousness that it feels like first-person without being so. The court of Henry VIII, Wolsey’s household, the Queen Catherine affair, the first glimmerings of Anne Boleyn — all are rendered through Cromwell’s pragmatic, ironical, ferociously intelligent perspective. One of the great opening volumes of any trilogy.
The Second Volume: Bring Up the Bodies (2012)
The most structurally perfect of the three volumes — the account of Anne Boleyn’s fall, which Cromwell engineers with the same methodical competence with which he built her rise. The title refers to the order to bring the accused men (the alleged lovers of Anne Boleyn) to trial; the novel traces the precise mechanics of political destruction. Faster than Wolf Hall, darker, and more formally concentrated; the best demonstration of Mantel’s ability to render historical events with the specificity and emotional weight of psychological fiction.
The Conclusion: The Mirror and the Light (2020)
The final volume — Cromwell’s fall, his arrest, his execution on Tower Hill in 1540. Mantel said she did not want to write this volume because she did not want Cromwell to die; the delay between Bring Up the Bodies (2012) and The Mirror and the Light (2020) reflects that reluctance. The novel is the longest of the three and the most elegiac: Cromwell is at the height of his power at the beginning and at his execution by the end, and the space between is Mantel’s most sustained account of what power costs and what it cannot protect. The trilogy’s ending is devastating.
Mantel’s Method
Mantel’s use of the present tense and the pronoun ‘he’ (for Cromwell) throughout the trilogy is its most immediately striking stylistic choice — and the most purposeful. The present tense makes the historical past feel immediate and contingent rather than settled and known; the ‘he’ forces the reader inside Cromwell’s consciousness without the mediation of first-person narration, which would feel too confessional for a man who never confesses. The prose is dense with period detail — food, clothing, the physical world of Tudor England — but the density is always purposeful; Mantel never uses historical detail decoratively.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where should I start with Hilary Mantel?
Wolf Hall (2009) is the essential starting point — the first volume of the Thomas Cromwell trilogy, in which Mantel's extraordinary prose style introduces us to Henry VIII's court through the consciousness of Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith's son who became the most powerful man in England. The novel won the Man Booker Prize and is one of the great historical novels in English. Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror and the Light are the second and third volumes and should be read in order; together they constitute one of the most significant achievements in contemporary British fiction.
What is Wolf Hall about?
Wolf Hall (2009) follows Thomas Cromwell from his brutal childhood through his rise as Henry VIII's chief minister, covering the period of Henry's break with Rome and his pursuit of Anne Boleyn. Mantel's Cromwell is not the villain of traditional historical fiction but a man of extraordinary competence, pragmatism, and loyalty, navigating a court where one misstep means death. The novel's prose — distinctive for its use of 'he' to refer to Cromwell even in third-person narration, which has the effect of making the reader inhabit Cromwell's consciousness — is one of the great stylistic achievements in contemporary fiction.
Do I need to know Tudor history to read Wolf Hall?
A basic knowledge of Henry VIII's reign — his six wives, the break with Rome, Thomas More's execution — is helpful but not essential. Mantel provides enough historical context within the narrative that readers unfamiliar with the period can follow the story; readers with more detailed knowledge will find additional pleasure in Mantel's interpretation of known events and characters. The most important thing to know going in: Thomas Cromwell, traditionally cast as the villain of the Tudor story (More's opponent, Wolsey's successor), is Mantel's hero — and her argument that he deserves reassessment is one of the trilogy's central achievements.
Is the Thomas Cromwell trilogy complete?
Yes. The Thomas Cromwell trilogy consists of Wolf Hall (2009), Bring Up the Bodies (2012), and The Mirror and the Light (2020). Together the three novels cover the period from Cromwell's childhood through his execution in 1540. Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies each won the Man Booker Prize, making Mantel the first author to win it twice. The Mirror and the Light was published in 2020, shortly after Mantel announced that it was the last volume, and she died in 2022 with the trilogy complete. The three novels should be read in order.
