Wolf Hall Trilogy Reading Order: All 3 Hilary Mantel Books

The Wolf Hall Trilogy by Hilary Mantel is one of the great achievements of modern historical fiction. Across three novels published between 2009 and 2020, Mantel follows Thomas Cromwell from a beaten boy in Putney to the most powerful man at the court of Henry VIII, and then to the scaffold.

The first two books both won the Booker Prize, the third was longlisted for it, and the trilogy has been adapted twice for television and three times for the stage. This guide gives the reading order, a summary of each book, where to start, the adaptations, and the series to read next.

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Quick Series Facts

Detail	Information
Author	Hilary Mantel
Number of books	3 novels (complete)
First book	Wolf Hall (2009)
Last book	The Mirror and the Light (2020)
Setting	Tudor England, 1500 to 1540
Genre	Literary historical fiction
Main character	Thomas Cromwell
Reading order	Publication order, which is also the chronological order
Awards	Booker Prize for Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012)

Wolf Hall Trilogy Books in Publication Order

Publication order is the only way to read the Wolf Hall Trilogy. The three novels tell one continuous story, and each picks up close to where the previous one ends, following Cromwell’s life from the 1520s to his execution in 1540.

1. Wolf Hall (2009)

Setting: Putney in 1500, then London and the Tudor court, from the late 1520s to 1535

The novel opens with a brutal scene from Cromwell’s childhood, as his father beats him in the family’s Putney yard, and then jumps forward to the late 1520s. Cromwell is now the trusted servant of Cardinal Wolsey, the king’s chief minister. When Wolsey falls from power after failing to secure Henry VIII’s annulment from Katherine of Aragon, Cromwell has to survive the court on his own.

He makes himself indispensable to the king, helps bring about the break with Rome and Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, and rises from outsider to the center of power. Mantel’s Cromwell is not the villain of older histories but a clever, pragmatic and often humane man serving a dangerous master. The novel ends in 1535, after the execution of Thomas More, as the court prepares to visit the Seymour family at Wolf Hall.

Awards: Booker Prize 2009, National Book Critics Circle Award, Walter Scott Prize 2010

2. Bring Up the Bodies (2012)

Setting: Wolf Hall and the Tudor court, from September 1535 to the summer of 1536

The shortest book of the three covers less than a year, and it contains some of the trilogy’s most dramatic events. It opens at Wolf Hall, where the king’s eye has begun to turn to Jane Seymour, and Anne Boleyn has still not given Henry a son.

What follows is Anne’s fall from queen to condemned traitor in a matter of weeks. Cromwell gathers the evidence and the confessions that bring down Anne and five men accused with her, including her own brother. The title comes from the order to bring the prisoners from the Tower to trial. The book ends with Anne’s execution and Henry’s marriage to Jane Seymour, with Cromwell’s enemies cleared away, for now.

Awards: Booker Prize 2012, Costa Book of the Year 2012

3. The Mirror and the Light (2020)

Setting: The Tudor court, from May 1536 to July 1540

The final and longest book covers the last four years of Cromwell’s life. It opens in the hours after Anne Boleyn’s execution and follows Cromwell at the height of his power, as he manages the dissolution of the monasteries, pushes religious reform and works to secure England’s future through foreign alliances.

But his enemies are gathering. Jane Seymour gives Henry the son he wanted and dies soon after the birth. Cromwell’s arrangement of the king’s marriage to Anne of Cleves, his reformist religion and the hatred of the old nobility bring about his fall. The novel ends with his arrest, imprisonment and execution in July 1540.

Awards: Walter Scott Prize 2021, longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020

About the Wolf Hall Trilogy

Series Overview

The trilogy is told in the present tense, and Mantel refers to Cromwell simply as “he”, which puts the reader inside his head with unusual immediacy. Sixteenth-century politics reads like something happening now.

Mantel kept a detailed card index of her characters and their movements, so that her invented scenes would fit around the documented events. The dialogue and Cromwell’s thoughts are imagined, but they are built carefully on the historical record, and the result brings to life not just the great events but the texture of daily life in Tudor England.

The trilogy’s best-known achievement is its new picture of Thomas Cromwell. For centuries he was remembered mainly as the ruthless enforcer who destroyed the monasteries and sent Thomas More to his death. Mantel shows a man of real ability who rose by intelligence rather than birth, who believed in reform and efficiency, and who protected the vulnerable where he could.

What Makes the Wolf Hall Trilogy Special

Literary excellence: Mantel became the first woman to win the Booker Prize twice, and the first author to win it for a sequel. Her prose can carry a long political negotiation and still catch the smell of a Tudor kitchen or the light through leaded glass.

Grounded in the record: Mantel worked from primary sources and built her fiction around the known facts. Where the record is silent, she imagines; where it speaks, she follows it.

Complex characters: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Thomas More and Cardinal Wolsey all come across as real people rather than historical chess pieces, and More in particular is far from the saint of tradition.

Political relevance: Five hundred years on, the trilogy’s study of power, loyalty, propaganda and survival under an unpredictable ruler still feels current.

An immersive world: From the Thames to the Privy Council, Mantel’s Tudor England is vivid, physical and convincing.

Where to Start with the Wolf Hall Trilogy

New to the Series?

Start here: Wolf Hall

There is no other starting point. The trilogy is one continuous narrative, and each book depends on the characters and events of the one before. Starting with Bring Up the Bodies would be like starting a television series in its second season.

Reading Commitment

The three novels run to roughly 2,000 pages together, depending on the edition. The Mirror and the Light is the longest by far, and Bring Up the Bodies the shortest. Most readers find that the present-tense narration and Cromwell’s dry wit keep them turning the pages, even through the long scenes of negotiation.

Reading Tips

Use the cast list: Each book opens with a list of characters. It helps a great deal in Wolf Hall, while you are still learning who everyone is.

Watch for “he”: In the first book, “he” nearly always means Cromwell, even when other men are in the scene. It takes some getting used to; in the later books Mantel often writes “he, Cromwell” to make it clear.

Take your time: These are books that reward slow reading, with small character moments and historical echoes that deepen on reflection.

About the Author: Hilary Mantel

Hilary Mantel (1952 to 2022) was one of the most acclaimed British writers of her generation. Before the Wolf Hall Trilogy she wrote many other novels, including A Place of Greater Safety, a novel of the French Revolution, and Beyond Black, a dark contemporary novel about a medium.

She studied law at the London School of Economics and the University of Sheffield, and later lived for several years in Botswana and then in Saudi Arabia, experiences she drew on in her writing.

Wolf Hall made her a household name. She won the Booker Prize for it in 2009 and again for Bring Up the Bodies in 2012, and she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2014. The Mirror and the Light followed in 2020. Mantel died in September 2022, two years after finishing the trilogy.

More by Hilary Mantel:

A Place of Greater Safety (French Revolution)
Beyond Black (contemporary)
Giving Up the Ghost (memoir)
Hilary Mantel: complete bibliography

Historical Context: Tudor England

The trilogy covers one of the most turbulent periods in English history. When the main story begins in the late 1520s, England is a Catholic country under papal authority. By Cromwell’s death in 1540, Henry VIII has broken with Rome, made himself Supreme Head of the Church of England, dissolved the monasteries and executed one of his wives, along with many former friends and allies.

The trigger was the “King’s Great Matter”, Henry’s determination to end his marriage to Katherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. When the Pope would not grant an annulment, Cromwell and others engineered the break with Rome. Cromwell was a key architect of the new state, building royal supremacy into law and overseeing the dissolution of the monasteries, which moved vast wealth and land into the hands of the crown and its supporters.

Mantel shows how personal ambition, religious conviction, political calculation and simple survival all became tangled together, and she presents the Reformation as both idealistic and cynical at once.

Explore the period: Tudor England | Best Tudor Historical Fiction

Adaptations

Television

Wolf Hall (2015)

The BBC adapted the first two novels as a six-part series, shown on BBC Two in early 2015 and on PBS in the United States. It starred:

Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell
Damian Lewis as Henry VIII
Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn
Jonathan Pryce as Cardinal Wolsey

Peter Kosminsky directed and Peter Straughan wrote the screenplay. Many interior scenes were lit only by candles, which gave the series its famously dark look. It won the Golden Globe for Best Miniseries or Television Film and three BAFTAs, including Best Drama Series and Best Actor for Mark Rylance, and it received eight Emmy nominations.

Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light (2024)

The final novel followed as a second six-part series on BBC One in November and December 2024. Mark Rylance and Damian Lewis returned as Cromwell and Henry, with Kosminsky directing and Straughan writing again.

Stage

The Royal Shakespeare Company staged the first two novels as two plays, adapted by Mike Poulton. They opened at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in December 2013, moved to the Aldwych Theatre in London’s West End in 2014, and reached Broadway in 2015 as Wolf Hall Parts One & Two.

Ben Miles played Cromwell and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. Nathaniel Parker won the Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role as Henry VIII, and Christopher Oram won both the Olivier and the Tony for his costume designs.

In 2021 a third play, The Mirror and the Light, opened at the Gielgud Theatre in London. Mantel wrote it herself together with Ben Miles, and Miles and Parker returned as Cromwell and Henry.

Audiobooks

Mantel chose Ben Miles to narrate the audiobook of The Mirror and the Light, after his years playing Cromwell on stage, and he went on to record the first two books as well. The earlier audiobooks of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies were read by other narrators, so check the narrator when you buy.

Similar Series You’ll Love

If you enjoyed the Wolf Hall Trilogy, these offer a similar appeal:

1. Shardlake by C.J. Sansom

The closest match in setting. Matthew Shardlake is a lawyer working for Thomas Cromwell when the series opens in Dissolution, set during the dissolution of the monasteries, and the books go on to explore Henry VIII’s later reign. Mantel’s Cromwell is sympathetic; Sansom’s is a frightening master, and reading both is fascinating.

2. The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett

Set in the same century, Dunnett’s six novels follow Francis Crawford of Lymond through the courts and battlefields of Renaissance Europe, starting with The Game of Kings. Like Mantel, Dunnett combines deep research with complex characters and demanding, rewarding prose.

3. Cicero Trilogy by Robert Harris

For readers who loved Wolf Hall’s political intrigue, Robert Harris tells the story of Cicero through the eyes of his secretary Tiro, beginning with Imperium. Like Cromwell, Cicero is a self-made man who rises by brains and words in a world run by the well born.

4. Six Tudor Queens by Alison Weir

The same court seen from the other side. Alison Weir gives each of Henry VIII’s wives a novel of her own, and the books on Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour cover the years of Mantel’s trilogy.

5. A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel

Mantel’s earlier novel of the French Revolution has many of the trilogy’s strengths: exhaustive research, complex characters and sharp political insight. It follows Danton, Robespierre and Desmoulins from their youth to the Terror.

More recommendations: Best Historical Fiction Series of All Time

Frequently Asked Questions

How many books are in the Wolf Hall Trilogy?

There are three: Wolf Hall (2009), Bring Up the Bodies (2012) and The Mirror and the Light (2020). The trilogy is complete.

Do I need to read the Wolf Hall Trilogy in order?

Yes. The trilogy tells one continuous story, and each book picks up close to where the previous one ends. Bring Up the Bodies depends on Wolf Hall, and The Mirror and the Light depends on both.

What is the Wolf Hall Trilogy about?

It follows Thomas Cromwell, a blacksmith’s son who rises to become the most powerful man at the court of Henry VIII. The books cover the years from the late 1520s to Cromwell’s execution in 1540, including the break with Rome, Henry’s marriages to Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour, the dissolution of the monasteries and the English Reformation.

Is the Wolf Hall Trilogy historically accurate?

It is closely based on the historical record. Cromwell’s thoughts and private conversations are imagined, but Mantel researched the period in depth and built her story around the documented events. Her sympathetic portrait of Cromwell, and her harsher view of Thomas More, are her own interpretation, and some historians disagree with them.

How long does it take to read the Wolf Hall Trilogy?

The three novels total roughly 2,000 pages, so it depends on your pace. Many readers take two or three months over the whole trilogy. The Mirror and the Light alone is the longest of the three by a wide margin.

Is the Wolf Hall Trilogy suitable for teenagers?

It is best suited to older teens and adults. There is no graphic sex, but the books deal with executions, violence and political cruelty, and the dense prose and large cast make them demanding reading.

Did Hilary Mantel finish the Wolf Hall Trilogy?

Yes. The Mirror and the Light, published in 2020, completed the trilogy. Mantel died in September 2022.

Are the Wolf Hall books available as audiobooks?

Yes, all three are available in print, as ebooks and as audiobooks. Mantel chose Ben Miles, who played Cromwell on stage, to narrate The Mirror and the Light, and he also recorded the first two books.

Why is the first book called Wolf Hall?

Wolf Hall is the Seymour family home in Wiltshire. The king’s planned visit there at the end of the novel, in 1535, is where his interest in Jane Seymour begins, and that sets in motion Anne Boleyn’s downfall in the second book.

How does the Wolf Hall Trilogy end?

It ends with Thomas Cromwell’s arrest and execution in July 1540. The ending is known from history, but Mantel makes his last weeks deeply moving.

Which book in the trilogy is best?

It is a matter of taste. Many readers rate Wolf Hall highest for its scope, while others prefer the tight, tense Bring Up the Bodies. The Mirror and the Light, the longest, brings the story to its close. Most fans recommend reading all three.

Is the BBC series as good as the books?

The BBC series is excellent and won a Golden Globe and three BAFTAs, but it cannot capture all of the inner life that makes Mantel’s prose special. It works best as a companion to the books, and Mark Rylance’s Cromwell is outstanding.

Do I need to know Tudor history before reading?

No. Mantel gives enough context for newcomers, though knowing the outline of Henry VIII’s six marriages and the English Reformation helps. The cast list at the front of each book is a useful guide.

Conclusion

The Wolf Hall Trilogy is a high point of modern historical fiction. Mantel makes a familiar period feel new, and her Thomas Cromwell, clever, damaged, funny and far kinder than his reputation, is one of the great characters in modern literature.

The three novels are a real commitment of time and attention, but they are also thrilling, moving and often darkly funny, and the questions they ask about power, loyalty and the cost of reform still feel close to home.

Start with Wolf Hall and settle in for months in Tudor England, seen through the eyes of its most fascinating survivor, until he does not survive.