Hilary Mantel’s novel,

Wolf Hall,

was published in 2009. Mantel declared that it was intended to be the first book in a trilogy about Thomas Cromwell who rose to a position of great power at the court of Henry VIII, only to lose his head when he eventually fell out of favour. Its sequel,

Bring up the Bodies

, was published in 2012 and, like its predecessor, was awarded the Man Booker Prize.

Wolf Hall

’s success in 2009 signaled a revival of serious historical fiction, its subject matter representing a return to Mantel’s first impulse as a novelist. Her earliest novel,

A Place of Greater Safety,

was an epic treatment of the French Revolution, focused through the lives of its most famous figures; however, although written early in her career, this novel was not published until 1992, by…

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Citation: Zlosnik, Sue. "Wolf Hall". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 October 2012 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=26524, accessed 27 November 2024.]

26524 Wolf Hall 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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