'Suddenly she was into her stride': Nicholas Pearson on publishing Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall
In 2005, Hilary Mantel emailed her editor Nicholas Pearson the first 40 pages of a new book, which would transform not only her career, but our expectations of historical fiction.
Here, he recalls how Wolf Hall came to life.
This essay is published to coincide with the publication of a new collection of Hilary Mantel’s journalism, A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing.
Written by Nicholas Pearson
October 18, 2023
By the early 2000s, Hilary Mantel was deep into her literary career, many outstanding novels behind her. But while her reputation was considerable, her readership remained frustratingly modest. Her novels shuttled from the historical to the contemporary. They were thematically varied and carried within them parts of her own story: domestic dramas, an interest in revolutionary change, her Irish Catholic heritage, her years in Saudi Arabia, fertility, women’s bodies, ghosts. All these novels were individually intriguing but perhaps it was difficult for readers to understand the bigger picture…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Wolf Hall Weekend to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.