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Wolf Hall (2009)

by Hilary Mantel

Other authors: Hege Mehren (Translator)

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Series: Wolf Hall Trilogy (1)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
13,097638442 (3.99)6 / 2232
Fiction. Literature. Historical Fiction. HTML:

In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political power
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 opposes him. The quest for the king's freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum.
Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.

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  1. 141
    Dissolution by C. J. Sansom (gypsysmom)
  2. 100
    The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers by Margaret George (napaxton)
  3. 144
    The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (kidzdoc)
    kidzdoc: This is another excellent British historical novel.
  4. 101
    The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir (ijustgetbored)
  5. 123
    Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (zhejw)
  6. 70
    An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears (souci)
    souci: A look at the machinations behind the throne as England passes out of placid Catholicism moving fitfully and violently towards Protestantism.
  7. 50
    Henry VIII by J. J. Scarisbrick (robeik)
    robeik: Somewhat academic, but chock-full of detail on Henry's divorce proceedings from Catherine and the Roman Catholic Church.
  8. 52
    Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel (otherstories)
  9. 41
    Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII by David Starkey (souloftherose)
  10. 41
    Abundance by Sena Jeter Naslund (bell7)
    bell7: Both biographical novels explore well-known historical events through the eyes of one sympathetic character close to the action.
  11. 31
    Virgin and the Crab: Sketches, Fables and Mysteries from the early life of John Dee and Elizabeth Tudor by Robert Parry (RochieRochel)
  12. 20
    The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel (guurtjesboekenkast)
  13. 21
    Hild by Nicola Griffith (wandering_star)
  14. 10
    Rizzio by Denise Mina (hazzabamboo)
  15. 21
    The Life of Thomas More by Peter Ackroyd (napaxton)
  16. 32
    The Marriage of Meggotta by Edith Pargeter (Osbaldistone)
  17. 44
    Dark Fire by C. J. Sansom (brenzi)
    brenzi: Another book concerning the Henry VIII and Thomas Chromwell.
  18. 22
    Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd (guurtjesboekenkast)
  19. 22
    A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury by Edith Pargeter (ansate)
    ansate: Different time period, but another fantastically written historical novel
  20. 22
    Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (Anonymous user)
    Anonymous user: This is another book that really brings a period of history to life around you.

(see all 25 recommendations)

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▾Conversations (About links)
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English (623)  Dutch (7)  German (4)  Spanish (2)  French (2)  Italian (2)  Swedish (2)  Portuguese (Brazil) (1)  Norwegian (1)  Hebrew (1)  Danish (1)  All languages (646)
date ▼ | votes
Showing 1-5 of 623 (next | show all)
Complex, witty. Great review of British history, and I can't wait to read Bring Up the Bodies. ( )
  Maryjane75 | Sep 30, 2023 |
Henry VIII battle with church & his divorce from the view of Thomas Cromwell
  ndfan19 | Aug 17, 2023 |
This is the book I needed right now, an epic historical fiction that makes clear to me why I fell in love with the genre in the first place. The whys and hows that lurk behind the whats of history take center stage, and what was once a jumble of dusty facts and names becomes a vivid human drama. I'm smitten, captivated, swept off my feet by this book.

Note: as others have mentioned, the author uses "he" almost exclusively to mean Thomas Cromwell, even if the preceding sentences make it seem otherwise. Here's an imaginary example: 'The king was displeased. He got up and walked over to the window.' In this example the "he" refers to Cromwell, not the king. It takes a handful of pages to get used to it, and then it's just second nature. ( )
  blueskygreentrees | Jul 30, 2023 |
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 20 years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe oppose him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cronwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully,. both idealist and opportunist, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but at what price.
  taurus27 | Jul 16, 2023 |
the author uses the pronoun "he" entirely too often in a book populated primarily by men. she bogs down in the dreck of the story so long you feel you my suffocate from sheer boredom before she gets to anything of import. I listened to over 50% of this book before I simply gave up.
  Fish_Witch | Jul 4, 2023 |
date ▼ | votes
Showing 1-5 of 623 (next | show all)
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▾Published reviews
Hilary Mantel sets a new standard for historical fiction with her latest novel Wolf Hall, a riveting portrait of Thomas Cromwell, chief advisor to King Henry VIII and a significant political figure in Tudor England. Mantel’s crystalline style, piercing eye and interest in, shall we say, the darker side of human nature, together with a real respect for historical accuracy, make this novel an engrossing, enveloping read.
added by clamairy | editBookPage, Lauren Bufferd (Mar 2, 2011)
 
hard to read but enjoyable
added by AAGP | editSlate Audio Book Club (Mar 15, 2010)
 
A sequel is plainly in view, as we are given glimpses of the rival daughters who plague the ever-more-gross monarch’s hectic search for male issue. The ginger-haired baby Elizabeth is mainly a squalling infant in the period of the narrative, which chiefly covers the years 1527–35, but in the figure of her sibling Mary, one is given a chilling prefiguration of the coming time when the bonfires of English heretics will really start to blaze in earnest. Mantel is herself of Catholic background and education, and evidently not sorry to be shot of it (as she might herself phrase the matter), so it is generous of her to show the many pettinesses and cruelties with which the future “Bloody Mary” was visited by the callous statecraft and churchmanship of her father’s court. Cromwell is shown trying only to mitigate, not relieve, her plight. And Mary’s icy religiosity he can forgive, but not More’s. Anyone who has been bamboozled by the saccharine propaganda of A Man for All Seasons should read Mantel’s rendering of the confrontation between More and his interlocutors about the Act of Succession, deposing the pope as the supreme head of the Church in England.
added by jimroberts | editThe Atlantic, Christopher Hitchens (Mar 1, 2010)
 
Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall is a startling achievement, a brilliant historical novel focused on the rise to power of a figure exceedingly unlikely, on the face of things, to arouse any sympathy at all.
added by NinieB | editNew York Review of Books, Stephen Greenblatt (Nov 5, 2009)
 
Thomas Cromwell remains a controversial and mysterious figure. Mantel has filled in the blanks plausibly, brilliantly. “Wolf Hall” has epic scale but lyric texture. Its 500-plus pages turn quickly, winged and falconlike... [It] is both spellbinding and believable.
added by Shortride | editThe New York Times Book Review, Christopher Benfey (Nov 1, 2009)
 
show all
▾Other authors

» Add other authors (29 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Mantel, Hilary—primary authorall editionsconfirmed
Mehren, HegeTranslatorsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Bridge, AndyIllustratie Omslagsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Simon SlaterNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Simon VanceNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Willems, IneTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
▾Series and work relationships
▾Awards and Honors

Awards

Distinctions

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▾Common Knowledge
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For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Wolf Hall
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
2009
People/Characters
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex
Henry VIII, King of England
Anne Boleyn
Thomas Wolsey (Archbishop of York, 1471-1530)
Jane Seymour
Important places
London, England, UK
Calais, Pas-de-Calais, Hauts-de-France, France
Whitehall, London, England, UK
Putney, London, England, UK
Tower of London, London, England, UK
Important events
English Reformation
Marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
Divorce/annulment of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII
Related movies
Wolf Hall (2015 | IMDb)
Awards and honors
Booker Prize (2009)
National Book Critics Circle Award (Fiction, 2009)
Walter Scott Prize (2010)
Time Magazine's Best Books of the Year (2009.30 | Fiction | 1)
Amazon's Best Books of the Month (2009.10 | October 2009)
Epigraph
'There are three kinds of scenes, one called the tragic, second the comic, third the satyric. Their decorations are different and unlike each other in scheme. Tragic scenes are delineated with columns, pediments, statues and other objects suited to kings; comic scenes exhibit private dwellings, with balconies and views representing rows of windows, after the manner of ordinary dwellings; satyric scenes are decorated with trees, caverns, mountains and other rustic objects delineated in landscape style.'

Vitruvius, De Architectura, on the theatre, c. 27 B.C.
Dedication
To my singular friend Mary Robertson this be given.
First words
"So now get up."

Felled, dazed, silent, he has fallen; knocked full length on the cobbles of the yard. His head turns sideways; his eyes are turned towards the gate, as if someone might arrive to help him out. One blow, properly placed, could kill him now.
Quotations
The Cardinal, a Bachelor of Arts at fifteen, a Bachelor of Theology by his mid-twenties, is learned in the law but does not like its delays; he cannot quite accept that real property cannot be changed into money, with the same speed and ease with which he changes a wafer into the body of Christ.
"You're sweeter to look at than the cardinal", he says. - "That's the smallest compliment a woman ever received."
It is surprising how international is the language of old men, swapping tips on salves for aches, commiserating with petty wretchedness and discussing the whims and demands of their wives.
"Tell us, Master Cromwell, you've been abroad. Are they particularly an ungrateful nation? It seems to me that they like change for the sake of it?" - "I don't think it's the English. I think it's just people. They always hope there may be something better."
Christ, he thinks, by my age I ought to know. You don't get on by being original. You don't get on by being bright. You don't get on by being strong. You get on by being a subtle crook; somehow he thinks that's what Norris is, and he feels an irrational dislike taking root, and he tries to dismiss it, because he prefers his dislikes rational.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Athill, Diana
Sansom, C.J.
Dunmore, Helen
Dunant, Sarah
Original language
English
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC
▾References

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (3)

▾Book descriptions
Fiction. Literature. Historical Fiction. HTML:

In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political power
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 opposes him. The quest for the king's freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum.
Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.

.
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▾LibraryThing members' description
Book description
Haiku summary
How many Thomases?
How many Annes? Enough for
A Reformation?
(thorold)
Hilary Mantel's
character resurrection
of Thomas Cromwell.
(passion4reading)
Fast-paced, well-written
political thriller. Twist?
Set in Tudor times.
(passion4reading)
Thomas Cromwell: from
historical figure to
man of flesh and blood.
(passion4reading)
A court of bared fangs,
Who will survive the scheming,
In this hall of wolves?
(hillaryrose7)

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Genres

Melvil Decimal System (DDC)

823.914Literature › English & Old English literatures › English fiction › Modern Period › 1901-1999 › 1945-1999

LC Classification

PR6063.A438Language and Literature › English › English Literature › 1961-2000

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