The double Booker prize-winning series tracks the rise and fall of Henry VIII’s fixer Thomas Cromwell.

The recent coverage around PBS Masterpiece’s latest installment of their adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy has got me thinking back on these books, which are among my favorite novels. The series consists of three volumes – Wolf Hall, Bring up the Bodies, and the Mirror and the Light – that follow the rise and fall of Henry VIII’s ambitious advisor Thomas Cromwell as he helps King Henry VIII reshape England in the pursuit of a male heir. 

Prior to reading the Wolf Hall trilogy, my exposure to the Tudors was limited to Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl and a report I wrote in high school. I almost didn’t read Wolf Hall at all because many negative reviews found it confusing. Readers complained that it was hard to distinguish whose perspective we were experiencing because of Mantel’s frequent use of “he” in a scene where there are many “hes” who could be speaking. Reading these reviews, I thought I might be in for a frustrating reading experience. But I quickly came to see the power of her decision to use this close third person point of view. It brings us much closer to Cromwell, and you quickly realize as a reader that the vast majority of the time, the “he” in question is Cromwell. This is a distinguishing characteristic of the books and I found it interesting to hear how the Masterpiece filmmakers extended this to their production.

Editing a Novelist at the Top of Her Game

The Wolf Hall trilogy is also unique in that it won not one, but two Booker prizes, for Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies. I was delighted to find this New York Times Book Review podcast with Mantel’s former editor Nicholas Pearson on what it was like to experience the first few chapters of Wolf Hall and work with her to edit this unforgettable series.

Fact Checking the Books

I’m not a historian, and when I read historical fiction I’m more interested in the story and setting than historical accuracy. But history buffs who read this trilogy might enjoy this Washington Post article featuring several Tudor historians, their books, and their take on Wolf Hall. This Smithsonian magazine article is also a helpful overview of Cromwell and Henry’s previously documented history relative to how Mantel portrayed Cromwell.

There Will Always Be Room on My Bookshelf for Wolf Hall

I truly loved reading this trilogy, and I suspect these are books I’ll return to again and again. They are challenging, especially if you don’t have a lot of knowledge of this historical time period, but Hilary Mantel gave us a real gift with these books. The stories are so immersive that whenever I had to put them down, I struggled to pull myself out of Tudor England and back to modern-day reality.

Have you read Wolf Hall? What did you think of it?

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