The fiction of Hilary Mantel

Illustrating Hilary Mantel’s versatility as a writer, the course enables students to contrast her ghost story Beyond Black (2005),focusing on a female medium and set in the present-day, with Bring Up the Bodies (2012), a historical novel located in the reign of King Henry VIII. We shall also discuss her short story ‘The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher’ and the mixed response from readers that it received. Whereas Beyond Black illustrates Mantel’s innovative representation of the motif of the haunted house and the interplay between material and spectral worlds it creates, Bring Up the Bodies introduces the reader to the sixteenth -century Tudor court and the pageantry and political intrigue typifying it. Mantel explores in the novel the animosity between Henry’s new queen Anne Boleyn and his chief minister Thomas Cromwell, the son of a blacksmith, who is instrumental in engineering the marriage. The short story ‘The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher’ is notable for its perceptive treatment of the political conflicts of the 1980s and Mantel’s witty treatment of them. The three texts, while differing in storyline and historical context, have features in common. All three illustrate Mantel’s skills in storytelling and character representation, as well as her interest in social interaction.PAULINA PALMER is a writer and critic, working in the field of contemporary fiction. He books include Contemporary Women’s Fiction (Harvester Wheatsheaf), Lesbian Gothic (Cassell; Continuum), The Queer Uncanny and Queering Contemporary Gothic Narrative 1970-2012. She has taught in the English Department at Warwick University and Birkbeck College, London. She has taught popular Saturday classes for City Lit on the fiction of Jeanette Winterson and other writers, as well as thrillers, historical fiction and Gothic fantasy. You can see more about her books on: