Abstract

Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, winner of the prestigious 2009 Booker-Man award for fiction, re-presents the 1520s and early 1530s from Thomas Cromwell's perspective. Mantel mistakenly underscores Cromwell's confessional neutrality and imagines his kindness as well as Thomas More's alleged cruelty. The book recycles old and threadbare accusations that More himself answered. "Dis-Manteling" collects evidence for the accuracy of More's answers and supplies alternative explanations for events and for More's attitudes that Mantel packs into her accusations. Wolf Hall is admirably readable, although prejudicial. Perhaps it is fair for fiction to distort so ascertainably, yet I should think that historians will want to have a dissent on the record.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2010

Comments

Copyright AMICI THOMAE MORI Society - Moreana Publications Jun 2010. This article first appeared in Moreana (47:179/180) June 2010, p.165-193. Reprinted with permission by Moreana Publications.

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