Dame Hilary Mantel: ‘Beloved’ Wolf Hall trilogy author dies aged 70, publisher says

Author Dame Hilary Mantel has died aged 70, her publisher has announced.

Dame Hilary was best known for her Wolf Hall trilogy, a reimagining of the life of Thomas Cromwell, for which she twice won the Man Booker Prize.

She is understood to have died peacefully yesterday (Thursday, September 22).

In a statement her publisher 4th Estate Books said: “It is with great sadness that HarperCollins announces that bestselling author Dame Hilary Mantel DBE died peacefully, surrounded by close family and friends, yesterday aged 70.

“Hilary Mantel was one of the greatest English novelists of this century and her beloved works are considered modern classics.

“She will be greatly missed.”

In a tweet, the publisher added: “We are heartbroken at the death of our beloved author, Dame Hilary Mantel, and our thoughts are with her friends and family, especially her husband, Gerald.

“This is a devastating loss and we can only be grateful she left us with such a magnificent body of work.”

Dame Hilary was born in Glossop, Derbyshire, in 1952, and studied law at the London School of Economics (LSE) and Sheffield University.

She worked as a social worker, and lived in Botswana and Saudi Arabia, and married her geologist husband Gerald McEwen, in 1972.

The author of 17 books, her work included Every Day is Mother’s Day; Eight Months on Ghazzah Street; A Place of Greater Safety; and her memoir, Giving up the Ghost - as well as the multi-award winning Wolf Hall trilogy.

The first book - and its sequels Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror & the Light - were translated into 41 languages, sold more than five million copies worldwide.

She also won the 2012 Costa Book of the Year award for Bring Up the Bodies, while The Mirror & the Light was an instant bestseller, longlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

Diarmaid MacCulloch, Oxford theology professor and Cromwell’s biographer said: “Hilary has reset the historical patterns through the way in which she’s reimagined the man.”

In 1990, Mantel was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 2006 was made a CBE before becoming a Dame in 2014.

She was also a governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company and played an active role in bringing Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies to the stage in 2013.

The Mirror & the Light was staged in London in 2021, starring Ben Miles as Cromwell, which she adapted for the stage, and is now set to be produced as a BBC drama.

Bill Hamilton, her agent at AM HEATH, said: “It has been the greatest privilege to work with Hilary through the whole of her career, and to see all the elements that made her unique come together spectacularly in the Cromwell trilogy.

“Her biting wit, stylistic daring, creative ambition and phenomenal historical insight mark her out as one of the greatest novelists of our time.

“We will miss her immeasurably, but as a shining light for writers and readers she leaves an extraordinary legacy.”

While Nicholas Pearson, former director of 4th Estate said: “The news of Hilary’s death is devastating to her friends and everyone who worked with her.

“Hilary had a unique outlook on the world…. every book [was] a weave of luminous sentences, unforgettable characters and remarkable insight. She seemed to know everything.”

He added: “As a person Hilary was kind, generous and loving, always a great champion of other writers.

“She was a joy to work with.

“Only last month I sat with her on a sunny afternoon in Devon, while she talked excitedly about the new novel she had embarked on.

“That we won’t have the pleasure of any more of her words is unbearable. What we do have is a body of work that will be read for generations.

“I will miss her and my thoughts are with her husband Gerald.”

And Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of HarperCollins, said: “This is terrible, tragic news and we are filled with sorrow for Hilary’s family and friends, especially her devoted husband Gerald.

“A writer to the core, Hilary was the best of her generation, of the age - a serious, fearless novelist with huge empathy for her subjects.

“Who else could have brought Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII and the huge cast of her Wolf Hall trilogy to life with such insight, frailty and humanity but her?

“We will all miss Hilary’s company, her wisdom, her humour, and treasure her incredible literary legacy.

“She will be read as long as people are still reading.”