Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
May, 1536. Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife, is dead. As the axe drops, Thomas Cromwell emerges from the bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour. This is not intended to be a full statement of all your rights under the Distance Selling Regulations. Full details of your rights under the Distance Selling Regulations are available in the UK from your local Citizens' Advice Bureau or your Local Authority's Trading Standards Office. When Mantel published Wolf Hall, she was 57 years old and the author of nine previous novels. Extraordinarily various, they were the output of a writer with very dark wit, who seemed unconcerned about courting popularity. She had always been in love with the sheer complexity of history. Her preparation for the Wolf Hall trilogy was her 1992 historical novel about the French Revolution, A Place of Greater Safety. This vast, multi-viewpoint narrative was almost too much: Mantel was overwhelmingly knowledgable, but this perhaps taught her that a novel with a huge cast of characters needed a single focus, one character before whose eyes history unfolds. Hilary Mantel was born in Glossop, Derbyshire, England on 6 July 1952. She studied Law at the London School of Economics and Sheffield University. She was employed as a social worker, and lived in Botswana for five years, followed by four years in Saudi Arabia, before returning to Britain in the mid-1980s. Mantel married geologist Gerald McEwen on September 23, 1972.
Not having read the first book since it was first released, and plodding my way through it at the time, this was the perfect way to work my way through the whole story from start to finish. Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived. Those six words, resonant with almost anyone who went to school in Britain, have become shorthand for the extraordinary story of Henry VIII and his six wives. It’s worth recalling that, before Mantel, Thomas Cromwell barely inhabited the public imagination: if recognised at all, he was often conflated with his distant descendant Oliver,’ says Penn. ‘Today, he has supplanted in our imagination that “man for all seasons” Thomas More, in whose conviction and execution for treason Cromwell himself played a key role.’ Once the queen’s head is severed, he walks away. A sharp pang of appetite reminds him that it is time for a second breakfast, or perhaps an early dinner. The morning’s circumstances are new and there are no rules to guide us.Once I’d managed to extricate myself from the whirlpool of ‘he saids,’ and ascertain that ‘he’ ALWAYS refers to Cromwell, I couldn’t get enough of Hilary Mantel’s sharp, dialogue-dominant prose. She avoids being laden down by old-style phrasing, resulting in a reading experience that is as urgent and exciting as Cromwell’s own life. Because the first two books have been excellent examples of great historical fiction – impeccably researched and highly imaginative. Where the historical record disappears, or in the paranoid world of the Tudor court – a world of twisted words, rumours of hearsay, half-truths, alternative facts – Mantel comes into her own, feeling for the tears in the historical fabric and slipping imperceptibly through them,’ Penn continues. Cromwell’s ending may be common knowledge, but Mantel still managed to maintain both her readers’ and the critics’ enthusiasm for his story over a period of 11 years. I actually got chills when I saw the billboard in Leicester Square with the Tudor Rose and the words ‘So now get up.’ I was so excited to get my hands on The Mirror and the Light after 8 years of waiting! Having read extensively around the Tudor period, James says when he came across Wolf Hall his first thought was: ‘What new thing could possibly be said about this?’
Mantel’s 2012 win for the second book in the trilogy, Bring Up the Bodies, was more emphatic. The chairman of the 2012 judging panel, Peter Stothard, said Mantel had ‘rewritten the book on writing historical fiction’ and described her as ‘the greatest modern English prose writer working today’.
Toys
Despite Anne Boleyn being manipulative and cruel, she is depicted as fully human and worthy of compassion. After years of scheming to get Henry to denounce his first wife, Anne is barely capable of standing or even of enduring the weight of the crown, once it's placed on her head in a ceremony where she is small and vulnerable. In a way, this is a whole new "genre" for me. This is a rather well edited abridged version (I of course missed this on Libby at first). I didn't really "get" abridged recordings before, especially not abridged versions of fiction. Did this trilogy change anything?
Because Mantel has taken a well known era of Tudor History and made it refreshing by focusing on a historical figure integral to that time who is not normally put front and centre in historical fiction. Thomas Cromwell is also a fascinating character – mentally sharp, loyal and strategic, witty and vengeful, and ultimately very human.So was it a big mistake to listen to this? Nope, I don't think I would have been interested enough to read all three books - there's a bit too much political intrigue. And I don't think listening to the audiobook would stop me from going for the full versions either. Desde que abrió quise hacerme con el libro, pero a veces las cosas pasan por un motivo, y entre que no había podido ir, y no me había dado tiempo, no lo he leído hasta esta semana. Ahora sé que es porque los libros nos escogen, una de las cientos de frases que he subrayado en el libro, porque tenemos que estar preparados para abrazar lo que el destino nos trae.
Great Deal 
New Comment