Hilary Mantel

Hilary Mantel was born on July 6, 1952, in Glossop, Derbyshire, England, and died on September 22, 2022. She studied law at Sheffield University and the London School of Economics before turning to fiction. Her first novel Every Day Is Mother's Day was published in 1985. Mantel is best known for her Wolf Hall trilogy, historical novels set in the court of Henry VIII and centered on Thomas Cromwell. Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012) each won the Booker Prize — making her the first woman and first British author to win the prize twice — and the Costa Novel Award and Costa Book of the Year. The Mirror and the Light (2020) completed the trilogy. Beyond the Tudor novels, she published a celebrated memoir, Giving Up the Ghost (2003), and collections of shorter fiction including The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher (2014). Her writing was known for its psychological intensity, narrative innovation, and historical erudition. Mantel was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2014. She was widely considered one of the greatest British novelists of her era.