The Mirror and the Light

'Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall novels make 99 per cent of contemporary literary fiction feel utterly pale and bloodless by comparison' The Times 'Hilary Mantel has written an epic of English history that does what the Aeneid did for the Romans and War and Peace for the Russians. We are lucky to have it.' Sunday Telegraph 'Very few writers manage not just to excavate the sedimented remains of the past, but bring them up again into the light and air so that they shine brightly once more before us. Hilary Mantel has done just that.' Simon Schama, Financial Times 'A masterpiece that will keep yielding its riches, changing as its readers change, going forward with us into the future' Guardian 'The most masterful story telling imaginable' Graham Norton 'The final book in the trilogy charts [Cromwell's] inexorable downfall with the dark brilliance and profound humanity that makes it, like its forerunners, a masterpiece' Daily Mail 'Ambitious, compassionate, clear-eyed yet emotional, passionate and pragmatic, The Mirror & the Light lays down a marker for historical fiction that will set the standard for generations to come' Independent 'It's the crowning glory of a towering achievement' Mail on Sunday 'This is a must-read' Good Housekeeping 'On closing the book I wept as I've not wept over a novel since I was a child . . . Mantel struck her spear against the flint of Thomas Cromwell, and lit such a candle in England as will never go out' Telegraph, Sarah Perry, 'A masterpiece . . . Mantel has redefined what the historical novel is capable of . . . Taken together, her Cromwell novels are, for my money, the greatest English novels of this century' Observer, Stephanie Merritt