What It Was Like to Edit the ‘Wolf Hall' Books
Last summer, when The Times released its list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, one of the authors with multiple titles on that list was Hilary Mantel, who died in 2022. Those novels were 'Wolf Hall' and 'Bring Up the Bodies,' the first two in a trilogy of novels about Thomas Cromwell, the all-purpose fixer and adviser to King Henry VIII.
Those books were also adapted into a 2015 television series starring Mark Rylance as Cromwell and Damien Lewis as King Henry. It's now a decade later and the third book in Mantel's series, 'The Mirror and the Light,' has also been adapted for the small screen. Its finale airs on Sunday, April 27.
Joining the host Gilbert Cruz on this week's episode is Mantel's former editor Nicholas Pearson. Pearson currently serves as the publishing director of John Murray Press in Britain, but he previously worked for more than two decades at the publisher Fourth Estate, where he had the opportunity to work with Mantel on her 'Wolf Hall' trilogy. He describes what it was like to encounter those books for the first time, and to work with a great author on a groundbreaking masterpiece of historical fiction.
We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.
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