Publication Order of Thomas Cromwell Books
| Wolf Hall | 2009 |
| Bring Up the Bodies | 2012 |
| The Mirror & the Light | 2020 |
Publication Order of Axon Family Books
| Every Day Is Mother’s Day | 1985 |
| Vacant Possession | 1986 |
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| Eight Months on Ghazzah Street | 1988 |
| Fludd | 1989 |
| A Place of Greater Safety | 1992 |
| A Change of Climate | 1994 |
| An Experiment in Love | 1995 |
| The Giant, O’Brien | 1998 |
| Beyond Black | 2005 |
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
| Learning to Talk | 2003 |
| The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher | 2014 |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| Giving Up the Ghost | 2003 |
| Mantel Pieces | 2020 |
| The Wolf Hall Picture Book (With: Ben Miles, George Miles) | 2022 |
| A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing | 2023 |
| The Woman Who Died of Robespierre | 2024 |
About Hilary Mantel
Dame Hilary Mantel (born 1952, died 2022) was a British writer best known for her trilogy of historical novels about Thomas Cromwell, the minister of Henry VIII. She won the Booker Prize twice, for “Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up the Bodies”, and was the first woman and the first British writer to win it more than once.
She was born Hilary Mary Thompson in Glossop, Derbyshire, on 6 July 1952 and raised in the mill village of Hadfield, later taking the surname of her unofficial stepfather, Jack Mantel. She studied law at the London School of Economics and the University of Sheffield, graduating in 1973, and then worked in the social work department of a geriatric hospital. That year she married Gerald McEwen, a geologist, and the couple spent five years in Botswana and four in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Her first novel, “Every Day Is Mother’s Day”, appeared in 1985, with its sequel “Vacant Possession” a year later. “Eight Months on Ghazzah Street” (1988) drew on her life in Saudi Arabia, and “Fludd” (1989) won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize. “A Place of Greater Safety” (1992) follows the French revolutionaries Danton, Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins; she had begun it in 1974 but could not at first find a publisher. “An Experiment in Love” won the Hawthornden Prize, “Beyond Black” (2005) was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, and her memoir “Giving Up the Ghost” was published in 2003.
“Wolf Hall” (2009) traces Cromwell’s rise to power at the Tudor court and won both the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. “Bring Up the Bodies” (2012) won a second Booker and the Costa Book of the Year. “The Mirror & the Light” (2020) covers the last four years of Cromwell’s life and won the 2021 Walter Scott Prize. The trilogy has sold more than five million copies. It was adapted for the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company and for television by the BBC, with Mark Rylance as Cromwell; the first series was broadcast in 2015 and the second in November 2024.
Mantel was made a dame in 2014. She died in Exeter on 22 September 2022, aged 70, from complications of a stroke. Two books have appeared since her death: “A Memoir of My Former Self” (2023) and “The Woman Who Died of Robespierre” (2024), a short study of the Polish playwright Stanisława Przybyszewska.