Hilary Mantel Books In Order

Publication Order of Axon Family Books

Publication Order of Thomas Cromwell Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of The Human Predicament Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Hilary Mary Dame Mantel was a renowned writer who had written a variety of topics on various subjects which range from personal memoir and many short stories, to essays and even historical fictions. Hilary Mantel was born on the 6th of July 1952 in Glossop a market place that is within Borough of High Peak found in Derbyshire (a county in the East Midlands), England.

Hilary passed away on September 20th, 2022.

In her lifetime she had been awarded two Booker Prizes (a literary price awarded annually to the best original novel that’s written in English and also published in the United Kingdom) two times. The first Booker price Hilary Mantel won was after she had published her first novel Wolf Hall in 2009. Wolf Hall is a fictional biography which documents about how Thomas Cromwell rose to power rapidly (around 1500 to 1535) while in Henry VIII ‘s reign.

Thomas Cromwell was a powerful minister who worked in King Henry VIII ‘s court. The second Booker price Hilary Mantel won was after she had published Bringing up the Bodies in the year 2012. Bringing up the Bodies is the second part of the planned trilogy which talked of Thomas Cromwell’s rise and fall. With these two awards Hilary Mantel became the first woman to have ever won an award two times.

Hilary Mantel started her early life in Glossop, a small market town in Derbyshire. She was the first born in the family of three children. Her mother was known as Margaret (nee Foster) and father as Henry Thompson. Both Mantel’s parents were of the Irish descent and they were both born in England.

Her parents later started having family problem which led to their separation and she never saw her father again after her eleventh birthday. Jack Mantel (born in 1932 and died 1995) married Margaret (Hilary’s mother) and became Hilary’s step father after she later moved in to stay with them. Margaret later took her step father’s name (Mantel) which became her name too.

They later relocated to Cheshire a county presently in the North West region of England. As she grew up she explored every details of her family’s background and it inspired her to come up with her personal memoir known as Giving up the Ghost which was published in the year 2003. In this memoir, Hilary Mantel can be read quoting that she lost all her religious faith when only 12 years old and this since left a permanent spot on her.

She started attending the Harrytown Covenant which is located in Romiley/ Cheshire. When it reached the year 1970, Hilary Mantel registered at London School of Economics and began studying Law. She then got married to Gerald McEwen who was a geologist in the year 1972. She later transferred to University of Sheffield (a research University located in Sheffield City, South Yorkshire) and in 1973 she graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Jurisprudence (study and theory of the law). When she was a student at University of Sheffield she used to play the role of a socialist and she would differ on type of social ownership advocated.

After finishing her university college education, Hilary Mantel was employed in Social Works Department in geriatric hospital (hospital specialized in health care and maintenance of the elderly) and later transferred to the stores department where she worked as the sales assistant.

She then started her writing career and her first novel was talking about French Revolution. The book was published and named A Place of Greater Safety. In the year 1977, Hilary Mantel together with her husband Gerald McEwen relocated to Botswana where they stayed for five years before moving to Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) for a period of four years. Her stay in Saudi Arabia inspired her to write a personal memoir Someone to Disturb which was published in London Review of Books (LRB).

She described the feeling of leaving Jeddah as the happiest day of her life. When Mantel was in her twenties, she suffered from a very painful illness which made her body and mind to be generally weak. She was thought to have a sick mind and was diagnosed from psychiatric illness initially. This led to her being hospitalized and antipsychotic drugs were prescribed for her treatment. Hilary Mantel later refrained from seeking the help of doctors for couple of years. While she was still living in Botswana and now becoming desperate to cure her condition, she intensively read medical textbooks which discussed the possible signs and symptoms of the condition she might be suffering from and discovered she might have been suffering from severe endometriosis (a kind of disease whereby the cells that grow in the lining of the uterus overgrow till they start growing outside of the uterus).

Doctors from London after a series of tests confirmed later that indeed Hilary Mantel may be suffering from a severe type of endometriosis. The doctors then recommended for Hilary to be operated on and the surgery made her not to be able to give birth any more. Hilary got more distracted and stressed which greatly interfered with her life. Continued use of steroids for her treatment resulted to her gaining a lot of weight and this greatly changed her general appearance. She later became a patron and a loyal supporter of the “Endometriosis SHE Trust” which educated ladies matters related to endometriosis and how the condition can be prevented.

The first type of novel which Hilary Mantel wrote was known as Everyday is Mother’s Day which was published in the year 1985 and a year later, the novel Vacant Possession was published and it was a sequel of Everyday is Mother’s Day. When she moved back to England she was selected as the film critic of The Spectator movie around 1987 to 1991. She was also chosen to review magazines and papers in Britain and the US. Other prices which Hilary Mantel won include “Sound Express Book of the year” award which she won for the book A Place of Greater Safety that was published in 1992. She also won “Hawthornden Prize” for publishing the book An Experiment in Love in the year 1996 among many other more awards.