Bring Up the Bodies: A Novel

Hilary Mantel

May 2012 · Sold by Henry Holt and Company

About this ebook

The sequel to Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel's Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, Bring Up the Bodies delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn.

The basis for the TV show on BBC and PBS Masterpiece starring Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell.

Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice.

At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head?

Named a top 10 Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and The Washington Post

Ratings and reviews

Excellent read....holds you to each sentence, each word, each syllable so as not to loose the trail and wander off in chase of the wrong character. Brilliant!

Great historical fiction. Well-written account of a complex player in one of the most enduringly fascinating periods of English history. Looking forward to volume three.

Complex. Nuanced. Immersive. A wide cast of characters. Once you get used to the writing style you won't want to leave it. This is not some crappy beach read, this is craft.

About the author

Hilary Mantel was the author of the bestselling novel Wolf Hall and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, which both won the Booker Prize. The final novel of the Wolf Hall trilogy, The Mirror & the Light, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and won world-wide critical acclaim. Mantel wrote seventeen celebrated books, including the memoir Giving Up the Ghost, and she was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, the Walter Scott Prize, the Costa Book Award, the Hawthornden Prize, and many other accolades. In 2014, Mantel was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She died at age seventy in 2022.