Hilary Mantel was one of the great voices of historical fiction – and so much more

By Dinah Birch, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Cultural Engagement, Professor of English Literature, University of Liverpool

Dame Hilary Mantel was a writer of immense skill and originality, and her death represents an incalculable loss to British literature. She will be chiefly remembered for her trilogy on the life of the Tudor politician Thomas Cromwell.

The grace and vigour of these gripping novels transformed our understanding of what historical fiction can do. They were extraordinarily successful. Wolf…

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