Bring Up the Bodies

Winner of the Man Booker Prize The second book in Hilary Mantel’s award-winning Wolf Hall trilogy, with a stunning new cover design to celebrate the publication of the much anticipated The Mirror and the Light An astounding literary accomplishment, Bring Up the Bodies is the story of this most terrifying moment of history, by one of our greatest living novelists. ‘Our most brilliant English writer’ Guardian Bring Up the Bodies unlocks the darkly glittering court of Henry VIII, where Thomas Cromwell is now chief minister. With Henry captivated by plain Jane Seymour and rumours of Anne Boleyn's faithlessness whispered by all, Cromwell knows what he must do to secure his position. But the bloody theatre of the queen's final days will leave no one unscathed. ‘A great novel of dark and dirty passions, public and private. A truly great story’ Financial Times ‘In another league. This ongoing story of Henry VIII’s right-hand man is the finest piece of historical fiction I have ever read’ Sunday Telegraph

‘This is a bloody story about the death of Anne Boleyn, but Hilary Mantel is a writer who thinks through the blood. She uses her power of prose to create moral ambiguity and the real uncertainty of political life … She has recast the most essential period of our modern English history; we have the greatest modern English prose writer reviving possibly one of the best known pieces of English history’ Sir Peter Stothard, Chair of the judges for the Man Booker Prize 2012 ‘Simply exceptional … I envy anyone who hasn’t yet read it’ Sandra Parsons, Daily Mail ‘In another league. This ongoing story of Henry VIII’s right-hand man is the finest piece of historical fiction I have ever read. A staggering achievement’ Sarah Crompton, Sunday Telegraph ‘Succeeds brilliantly in every particle … it’s an imaginative achievement to exhaust superlatives’ Spectator ‘Wolf Hall was a tour de force, but its sequel is leaner, more brilliant, more shocking than its predecessor’ Erica Wagner, The Times ‘Picks up the body parts where Wolf Hall left off … literary invention does not fail her: she's as deft and verbally adroit as ever’ Margaret Atwood, Guardian ‘Mantel in the voice of Cromwell is inspired. When she is in full flow as a novelist, creating scenes and inventing dialogue, she is more convincing than rendering a recorded scene from history’ Philippa Gregory, Sunday Express ‘Don’t think you can start this book whenever you feel like it – plan ahead, as, once started, it’s impossible to escape its grip, and until it’s finished, you won’t get any sleep’ Country Life

Hilary Mantel is the author of seventeen books, including A Place of Greater Safety, Beyond Black, the memoir Giving Up the Ghost and the short story collection The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher. Her latest novel, The Mirror & the Light, won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, while Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies were both awarded the Booker Prize.