15.11.11 | Graeme Neill - The BooksellerPublishing director Nicholas Pearson bought UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, to Bring Up the Bodies from Bill Hamilton at AM Heath. The book will be published in May 2012.
Pearson said: "We are thrilled to be able to announce that Hilary Mantel has delivered a new novel. In Bring up the Bodies, she has turned her attention to the downfall of Anne Boleyn, a story at the heart of Tudor history, and in Mantel’s hands, every bit as illuminating, terrifying and utterly compelling as one might expect.
"Like its predecessor, Wolf Hall, it is hard to think of anything in contemporary fiction quite like it, and it will certainly delight her many fans all over the world."
1 comment:
I have to say that I love all things Tudor, and Wolf Hall is no exception, but it is exceptional. In most of the novels about Henry VIII's England, Cromwell plays a role, but he's never been the main character. Writers most often leave the famous wives of Henry VIII (divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived) to play that role. In reality, not a lot is known about this person, but Hilary Mantel has woven her tale not only around Cromwell, but through him.
In Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel takes a slice of Tudor history and allows the reader to view it through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, who rose through life from his origins as the son of a blacksmith to become the chief minister of King Henry VIII. From his humble origins, he manages to become an important advisor to the ill-fated Cardinal Wolsey, who, as everyone knows, started his downhill slide because of his inability to provide Henry VIII with a Church-sanctioned divorce from Katherine of Aragon. It is, ironically, Wolsey's fall that begins Cromwell's rise. Cromwell survives by his own maxim: "inch by inch forward. Never mind if he calls you an eel or a worm or a snake. Head down, don't provoke him." (4) His fortune is on the ascendant throughout the story, but as everyone also knows, fortune is fleeting, and especially in this time largely at the whim of the king.
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