WOLF HALL
In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII’s court, only one
man dares to gamble his life to win the king’s favor and ascend to the
heights of political power
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat
from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could
be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of
twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes
him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his adviser, the
brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum.
Into this
impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a
charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading
people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician,
hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry
is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break
the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
In
inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made
society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their
fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters,
overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal
and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings
unlimited power but a single failure means death.
