Product Description

'Lock Cromwell in a deep dungeon in the morning,' says Thomas More, 'and when you come back that night he'll be sitting on a plush cushion eating larks' tongues, and all the gaolers will owe him money.' England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolsey's clerk, and later his successor. 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. Ruthless in pursuit of his own interests, he is as ambitious in his wider politics as he is for himself. His reforming agenda is carried out in the grip of a self-interested parliament and a king who fluctuates between romantic passions and murderous rages. From one of our finest living writers, Wolf Hall is that very rare thing: a truly great English novel, one that explores the intersection of individual psychology and wider politics. With a vast array of characters, and richly overflowing with incident, it peels back history to show us Tudor England as a half-made society, moulding itself with great passion and suffering and courage.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 672 pages

About the Author
Hilary Mantel is one of our most important living writers. She is the author of eleven books, including A Place of Greater Safety, Giving Up the Ghost, and, most recently, Beyond Black, which was shortlisted for the 2006 Orange Prize.

Customer Reviews

A magnificent tale
Anyone who paid attention in history classes at school will need little background to the events of Wolf Hall. The key events of the story take place over just less than a ten year period from the 1520s to the 1530s. Mantel has taken what is, supposedly, Britain's best loved history topic, Henry VIII and his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, marriage to Anne Boleyn and the resulting split with Rome and has melded it into a compelling story.

She has obviously had some of her work done for her - the key dramatic events, characters, plots and intrigue are fairly heavily based in fact, but what Mantel has done is to breathe life and substance into the historial figures to make them loveable, hateable, complex characters. At the centre of her book stands Thomas Cromwell, a man from humble origins who rose to unprecedented power in England as Henry's chief minister. Cromwell is beautifully portrayed and his personal relationships, be they loving, tragic or political are fascinating reading. The relationships with Wolsey and More in particular are executed wonderfully (no pun intended in the latter case).

My only grumble with the book were that some events are included, but skated over in short passages and other events are included, but drag a little. This is probably an inevitable part of a historical novel covering such a long period of time; you can't simply leap forward 2 years and avoid the need to understand certain intervening events. However, whilst this slows the pace of the book in places, I enjoyed the book so much that it didn't particularly spoil it for me (indeed, those who prefer a fast paced novel are probably not going to enjoy Wolf Hall).

The book ends shortly after the death of Thomas More, and I can't be only one who wonders (and hopes) whether we might yet see a second, "decline and fall" book. I'd certainly love to read it.

Booker Prize Winner 2009 - an immensely enjoyable, but a long read
The 500 anniversary of Henry VIII's birth has triggered a real flood of books on the Tudors and the whole period. This period of English history had always been my favourite. So I just love it.

However Thomas Cromwell, Henry's chief ministers and the architect of Reform, had always been a bit elusive. So I am very happy that Hilary Mantel has made him the subject of her monumental novel.

Hilary Mantel has immersed herself into the period and indeed managed to re-created this very time when society changed so much. It is convincing and engaging, but not in an easy manner. She does not tell the story in a very simplistic way. Instead she chooses to show the different layers and the complications and I feel thereby gets very close to the challenges of the time. That does not make necessarily an easy reading, but a rewarding one as one gains a better understanding of the time. Cromwell and his personality became for the first time alive for me. Historic novels are a great tool to show a period or personality as the author sees him or her without being too closely tied to historic evidence. I believe Hilary Mantel has done that to perfection. She has given us her take on Cromwell and the Tudor period. But maybe she is a bit too much taken by Cromwell and it gives it a bit of unbalanced perspective.

Wolf Hall, the seat of the Seymours, is for me a symbol for the future, the protestant future as here Queen Jane, mother of the first protestant King Edward VI, lived. And btw Cromwell's son and heir Gregory married Elisabeth Seymour, sister to Queen Jane and the Lord Protector The Duke of Somerset.

All in all, this is an enjoyable but long read (more than 650 pages).

Wolf Hall
In Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantell we see the dramatic events of 16th century England through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, who was the chief minister to Henry VIII at the time. He is a most unlikely hero but strangely, despite the really unsavoury aspects to his character, the reader experiences great empathy for him as he navigates his way with skill and intelligence through the labyrinth of political intrigue in a period when one false step could send you to the executioner's block or worse to be burned alive in public. Cromwell, despite his lowly origins and his brutal childhood, demonstrates his giftedness, his wisdom, his political acumen, his sensitivity to beauty and art, as well as his social accomplishment with people from all walks of life. We also read about his capacity for genuine love and feel how he grieves when family members, especially his wife and two daughters, die suddenly, probably from the ever-present plague. Cromwell shows over and over his perceptive observation of life around him and he revels in the social changes that many others find so difficult to adapt to. His observations on the church and on the thrilling but forbidden new ideas that were spreading throughout Europe are acute and Hilary Mantell, through her deep knowledge of the time, demonstrates by means of Cromwell's inner thoughts and dialogues how brilliantly he managed to stay abreast of dangerous ideas. More than that, he actively put the new challenges into practice in the service of the king through Henry's search for a justification of his desire for a divorce from Catherine of Aragon.
I loved this book and though I predicted that it would not win the Booker Prize as it is not a particularly easy read, I was very happy when it did. I look forward to the sequel with anticipation.

Helen Cowie
Wolf Hall