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: #8 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).

Enthralling
This the story of Thomas Cromwell famous for helping Henry VIII secure his divorce from Katherine of Aragon. It is one epic book that took me a while to read and in many ways turns the popular historical view I had of Cromwell on it's head as an exact rebuff toA Man for All Seasons (Methuen Theatre Classics) (Modern Classics) (also loved the portrayal of Sir Thomas More). This is not unusual for novels that use a history as a base (I now have a new recently acquired view of Mary Queen of Scots after reading Full Story Inside and found cause to read more on Elisabeth I after watching Elizabeth : Special Edition [1998] [DVD] , although will always dismiss The Tudors: Complete Series 1 And 2 [DVD] [2007] as frivolous nonsense )

Everyone with even a little knowledge of English history knows the story of Henry and his six wives, and the dissolution of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon but essentially Wolf Hall rewrites the history of England from 1527 to 1535 with Thomas Cromwell as the hero. The writing is so wonderfully descriptive that you get a perfect picture of every scene and are so drawn into events, and the characterisation is spot on (loved the scheming spoilt brat interpretation of Anne Boleyn).

Wolf Hall is a wonderful example of what a historical Novel should be and worthy winner of the Book Prize (also highly recommend A Place of Greater Safety