Wolf Hall is a historical novel by English author Hilary Mantel, published by Fourth Estate, named after the Seymour family’s seat of Wolfhall or Wulfhall in Wiltshire. Set in the period from 1500 to 1535, Wolf Hall is a sympathetic fictionalised biography documenting the rapid rise to power of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII through to the death of Sir Thomas More. The novel won both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2012, The Observer named it as one of "The 10 best historical novels". The book is the first in a trilogy; the sequel Bring Up the Bodies was published in 2012. The last book in the trilogy is The Mirror and the Light and covers the last four years of Cromwell's life.
Historical background
Born to a working-class family of no position or name, Cromwell rose to become the right-hand man of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, adviser to the King. He survived Wolsey's fall from grace to eventually take his place as the most powerful of Henry's ministers. In that role, he observed turning points of English history, as Henry asserted his authority to declare his marriage annulled from Catherine of Aragon, married Anne Boleyn, broke from Rome, established the independence of the Church of England, and called for the dissolution of the monasteries. The novel is a reenvisioning of historical and literary records; in Robert Bolt's play A Man for All Seasons Cromwell is portrayed as the calculating, unprincipled opposite of Thomas More's honour and rectitude. Mantel's novel offers an alternative to that portrayal, a more intimate portrait of Cromwell as a tolerant, pragmatic, and talented man attempting to serve king, country, and family amid the political machinations of Henry's court and the religious upheavals of the Reformation, in contrast to More's viciously punitive adherence to the old Roman Catholic order that Henry is sweeping away.
Process
Mantel said she spent five years researching and writing the book, trying to match her fiction to the historical record. To avoid contradicting history, she created a card catalogue, organised alphabetically by character, with each card containing notes indicating where a particular historical figure was on relevant dates. "You really need to know, where is the Duke of Suffolk at the moment? You can't have him in London if he's supposed to be somewhere else", she explained. In an interview with The Guardian, Mantel stated her aim to place the reader in "that time and that place, putting you into Henry's entourage. The essence of the thing is not to judge with hindsight, not to pass judgment from the lofty perch of the 21st century when we know what happened. It's to be there with them in that hunting party at Wolf Hall, moving forward with imperfect information and perhaps wrong expectations, but in any case moving forward into a future that is not predetermined, but where chance and hazard will play a terrific role."
Characters
Wolf Hall includes a large cast of fictionalised historical persons. In addition to those already mentioned, prominent characters include:
The title comes from the name of the Seymour family seat at Wolfhall or Wulfhall in Wiltshire; the title's allusion to the old Latin saying Homo homini lupus serves as a constant reminder of the dangerously opportunistic nature of the world through which Cromwell navigates.
Critical reaction
In a poll of literary experts by the Independent Bath Literature Festival, Wolf Hall was voted the greatest novel from 1995-2015. It also ranked third in a BBC Culture poll of the best novels since 2000. In 2019, Wolf Hall was ranked first in The Guardian's list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.
Awards and nominations
Winner – 2009 Man Booker Prize. James Naughtie, the chairman of the Booker prize judges, said the decision to give Wolf Hall the award was "based on the sheer bigness of the book. The boldness of its narrative, its scene setting...The extraordinary way that Hilary Mantel has created what one of the judges has said was a contemporary novel, a modern novel, which happens to be set in the 16th century".
Winner – 2010 AudioFile magazine Earphone Award for the audiobook narrated by Simon Slater
Adaptations
Stage
In January 2013, the Royal Shakespeare Company announced that it would stage adaptations by Mike Poulton of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies in its Winter season. The production transferred to London's Aldwych Theatre in May 2014, for a limited run until October. Producers Jeffrey Richards and Jerry Frankel brought the London productions of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, starring Ben Miles as Thomas Cromwell, Lydia Leonard as Anne Boleyn, Lucy Briers as Katherine of Aragon, and Nathaniel Parker as Henry VIII, to Broadway'sWinter Garden Theatre in March 2015 for a 15-week run. The double-bill has been re-titled Wolf Hall, Parts 1 and 2 for American audiences. The play was nominated for 8 Tony Awards, including Best Play.
Television
In 2012, the BBC announced that it would be adapting Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies for BBC Two, to be broadcast in 2015. On 8 March 2013, the BBC reported that Mark Rylance had been cast as Thomas Cromwell. The first episode was broadcast in the United States on PBS's Masterpiece Theatre, on 5 April 2015. In June 2015, Amazon announced exclusive rights to stream Masterpiece programs, including Wolf Hall, on its Amazon Prime Instant Video platform.
