By 1535 Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith’s son, is far from his humble origins. Chief Minister to Henry VIII, his fortunes have risen with those of Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife, for whose sake Henry has broken with Rome and created his own church. But Henry’s actions have forced England into dangerous isolation, and Anne has failed to do what she promised: bear a son to secure the Tudor line. When Henry visits Wolf Hall, Cromwell watches as Henry falls in love with the silent, plain Jane Seymour. The minister sees what is at stake: not just the king’s pleasure, but the safety of the nation. As he eases a way through the sexual politics of the court, its miasma of gossip, he must negotiate a ‘truth’ that will satisfy Henry and secure his own career. But neither minister nor king will emerge undamaged from the bloody theatre of Anne’s final days.
Praise for Wolf Hall: 'This is a beautiful and profoundly human book, a dark mirror held up to our own world. And the fact that its conclusion takes place after the curtain has fallen only proves that Hilary Mantel is one of our bravest as well as our most brilliant writers.' Olivia Laing, Observer 'As soon as I opened the book I was gripped. I read it almost non-stop. When I did have to put it down, I was full of regret that the story was over, a regret I still feel. This is a wonderful and intelligently imagined retelling of a familiar tale from an unfamiliar angle.' The Times 'Mantel is a writer who sees the skull beneath the skin, the worm in the bud, the child abuse in the suburbs and the rat in the mattress!Turning her attention to Tudor England, she makes that world at once so concrete you can smell the rain-drenched wool cloaks!This is a splendidly ambitious book!I wait greedily for the sequel, but "Wolf Hall" is already a feast.' Daily Telegraph 'A compelling and humane investigation of the cost of ambition.' Guardian 'Mantel's ability to pick out vivid scenes from sources and give them life within her fiction is quite exceptional!Vividly alive.' London Review of Books 'A stunning book. It breaks free of what the novel has become nowadays. I can't think of anything since "Middlemarch" which so convincingly builds a world.' Diana Athill A fascinating read, so good I rationed myself. It is remarkable and very learned; the texture is marvellously rich, the feel of Tudor London and the growing household of a man on the rise marvellously authentic. Characters real and imagined spring to life, from the childish and petulant King to Thomas Wolsey's jester, and it captures the extrovert, confident, violent mood of the age wonderfully." C.J. Sansom "A magnificent achievement: the scale of its vision and the fine stitching of its detail; the teeming canvas of characters; the style with its clipped but powerful immediacy; the wit, the poetry and the nuance." Sarah Dunant "A superb novel, beautifully constructed, and an absolutely compelling read. Mantel has created a novel of Tudor times which persuades us that we are there, at that moment, hungry to know what happens next. It is the making of our English world, and who can fail to be stirred by it?" Helen Dunmore 'Hilary Mantel's magnificent new novel' Bee Wilson, Daily Telegraph 'Magestically conjures up an England in the throes of epic change ! a Great British Novel' Hephzibah Anderson, Observer 'Mantel has produced, all round, the novel that best delivers what it promises. It never lets you down; the prose gleams and she tells the story in an original and free-flowing style that will entrap you if you let it.' The Times 'Ms Mantel's best novel yet' The Economist "Cromwell has never before appeared as he does in Hilary Mantel's dense, finely wrought 'Wolf Hall'!So convincing is she with 'Wolf Hall' that it is easy to feel that we are seeing the real Cromwell before us, transforming himself from the battered child of an abusive London blacksmith- the boy is bruised and bloodied in the novel's wrenching opening scene-into a cosmopolitan, accomplished Renaissance man!Ms. Mantel has demonstrated that, in her way with Cromwell, she is without peer." Wall Street Journal
Shortlisted for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2012.
Title: Bring up the bodies
Subtitle:
Contributors:
By (author)
Hilary Mantel
ISBN 13: 9780007353583
ISBN 10: 0007353588
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Imprint: Fourth Estate Ltd
Publication Date: 10/05/2012
Place of Publication:
London,
United Kingdom
Edition:
BIC Subjects:
General & literary fiction
;
Historical fiction
NBS Classification: Historical & Mythological Fiction
Dewey Classification:
823.914
(DC21)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 600
Height: 234mm
Width: 153mm
Weight: 636g