Most Popular Books by Hilary Mantel

Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell clash in Henry VIII''s turbulent court.

The Giant, O''Brien, is a freak of nature on display in 1782 London. On exhibit for money, he has, he soon finds out, come to die--and a man of science covets the corpse for his own purposes.

THE FINAL BOOK FROM ONE OF OUR GREATEST WRITERS In addition to her celebrated career as a novelist, Hilary Mantel contributed for years to newspapers and journals, unspooling stories from her own life and illuminating the world as she found it. “Ink is a generative fluid,” she explains. “If you don’t mean your words to breed consequences, don’t write at all.” A Memoir of My Former Self collects the finest of this writing over four decades. Her subjects are wide-ranging, sharply observed, and beautifully rendered. She discusses nationalism and her own sense of belonging; our dream life popping into our conscious life; the mythic legacy of Princess Diana; the many themes that feed into her novels—revolutionary France, psychics, Tudor England; and other novelists, from Jane Austen to V.S. Naipaul. She writes about her father and the man who replaced him; she writes fiercely and heartbreakingly about the battles with her health that she endured as a young woman, and the stifling years she found herself living in Saudi Arabia. Here, too, is her legendary essay “Royal Bodies,” on our endless fascination with the current royal family. From her unusual childhood to her all-consuming interest in Thomas Cromwell that grew into the Wolf Hall trilogy, A Memoir of My Former Self reveals the shape of Hilary Mantel’s life in her own luminous words, through “messages from people I used to be.” Filled with her singular wit and wisdom, it is essential reading from one of our greatest writers.

Now a major TV series The Sunday Times bestseller Shortlisted for the Women''s Prize for Fiction Longlisted for the Booker Prize ''It is a book not read, but lived'' Telegraph ''Her Cromwell novels are, for my money, the greatest English novels of this century'' Observer ''If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?'' The Mirror & The Light begins after the death of Anne Boleyn. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith''s son has knocked down everyone in his path: established at the right hand of Henry VIII, he is the second man in England. But what will you do, an astute witness asks, when the king turns on you, as sooner or later he turns on everyone close to him? Heralded as the greatest English novels of this century, the Wolf Hall trilogy has won two Booker Prizes and been adapted into hugely successful stage plays. The first two books, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, were transformed into a BAFTA- and Golden Globe-winning BBC television series, starring Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis. The cast now returns in the long-awaited concluding series, Wolf Hall: The Mirror & the Light. A Guardian Book of the Year * A Times Book of the Year * A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year * A Sunday Times Book of the Year * A New Statesman Book of the Year * A Spectator Book of the Year Sunday Times Bestseller (08/03/2020)

The sequel to Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel''s Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, Bring Up the Bodies delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn. The basis for the TV show on BBC and PBS Masterpiece starring Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell. Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice. At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel''s Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne''s head? Named a top 10 Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and The Washington Post

A stunning collection of essays and memoir from twice Booker Prize winner and international bestseller Hilary Mantel, author of The Mirror and the Light

Winners of the Man Booker Prize and hugely successful stage plays in London''s West End and on Broadway, Hilary Mantel''s Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies bring history to life for a whole new audience having now been adapted into a six-part television series by the BBC and PBS Masterpiece. England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe oppose him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, master of deadly intrigue, and implacable in his ambition.

Introducing the Collins Modern Classics, a series featuring some of the most significant books of recent times, books that shed light on the human experience - classics which will endure for generations to come.

The brilliant #1 New York Times bestseller Named a best book of 2020 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, The Guardian, and many more With The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with her peerless, Booker Prize-winning novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage. The story begins in May 1536: Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour. Cromwell, a man with only his wits to rely on, has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to the breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. All of England lies at his feet, ripe for innovation and religious reform. But as fortune’s wheel turns, Cromwell’s enemies are gathering in the shadows. The inevitable question remains: how long can anyone survive under Henry’s cruel and capricious gaze? Eagerly awaited and eight years in the making, The Mirror & the Light completes Cromwell’s journey from self-made man to one of the most feared, influential figures of his time. Portrayed by Mantel with pathos and terrific energy, Cromwell is as complex as he is unforgettable: a politician and a fixer, a husband and a father, a man who both defied and defined his age.

The drama of an English missionary couple. Posted to South Africa they become anti-apartheid activists and are jailed. Released, they move to Botswana where she gives birth to twins, but a black servant abducts them and only one boy is recovered. Although they have more children, the incident poisons their lives. By the author of An Experiment in Love.

A girl''s climb up the social ladder in 1960s England. She is Carmel McBain from Lancashire, whose low-class mother pumps her with ambition. The novel follows Carmel through a convent school to university, describing her ups and downs integrating in her new milieu, and the price she pays for it.

Set during the French Revolution, this "riveting historical novel" ("The New Yorker") is the story of three young provincials who together helped destroy a way of life and, in the process, destroyed themselves.

Now a major TV seriesWinner of the Man Booker Prize 2009Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2012Winner of the Costa Book of the Year 2012Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2013Shortlisted for the the Orange Prize 2009Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2009

One dark and stormy night in 1956, a stranger named Fludd mysteriously turns up in the dismal village of Fetherhoughton. He is the curate sent by the bishop to assist Father Angwin-or is he? In the most unlikely of places, a superstitious town that understands little of romance or sentimentality, where bad blood between neighbors is ancient and impenetrable, miracles begin to bloom. No matter how copiously Father Angwin drinks while he confesses his broken faith, the level of the bottle does not drop. Although Fludd does not appear to be eating, the food on his plate disappears. Fludd becomes lover, gravedigger, and savior, transforming his dull office into a golden regency of decision, unashamed sensation, and unprecedented action. Knitting together the miraculous and the mundane, the dreadful and the ludicrous, Fludd is a tale of alchemy and transformation told with astonishing art, insight, humor, and wit.

An English couple''s life in Saudi Arabia told through the eyes of Frances, the wife. She describes the heat, the ugliness and the menace of Islamic law. Men stroll in the street with rifles and from the apartment upstairs comes sobbing. It is nothing her Arab friends tell her, simply a millionaire''s mistress, but Frances knows they are lying. Finally, there is murder.

The New York Times bestselling collection, from the Man Booker prize-winner for Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, that has been called "scintillating" (New York Times Books Review), "breathtaking" (NPR), "exquisite" (The Chicago Tribune) and "otherworldly" (Washington Post). "A new Hilary Mantel book is an Event with a ‘capital ‘E.''"—NPR "A book of her short stories is like a little sweet treat."—USA Today (4 stars) "[Mantel is at] the top of her game."—Salon "Genius."—The Seattle Times One of the most accomplished, acclaimed, and garlanded writers, Hilary Mantel delivers a brilliant collection of contemporary stories In The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, Hilary Mantel''s trademark gifts of penetrating characterization, unsparing eye, and rascally intelligence are once again fully on display. Stories of dislocation and family fracture, of whimsical infidelities and sudden deaths with sinister causes, brilliantly unsettle the reader in that unmistakably Mantel way. Cutting to the core of human experience, Mantel brutally and acutely writes about marriage, class, family, and sex. Unpredictable, diverse, and sometimes shocking, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher displays a magnificent writer at the peak of her powers.

A brilliant collection of short stories from the double Man Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies.