An accessible and authoritative companion to the bestselling Wolf Hall trilogy by Hilary Mantel, published after the third and final book, The Mirror and the Light. 

Wolf Hall Companion gives an historian's view of what we know about Thomas Cromwell, one of the most powerful men of the Tudor age and the central character in Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy.

Covering the key court and political characters from the books, this companion guide also works as a concise Tudor history primer. Alongside Thomas Cromwell, the author explores characters including Anne Boleyn, Thomas Cranmer, Jane Seymour, Henry VIII, Thomas Howard, Cardinal Wolsey and Richard Fox. The important places in the court of Henry VIII are introduced and put into context, including Hampton Court, the Tower of London, Cromwell's home Austin Friars, and of course Wolf Hall. The author explores not only the real history of these people and places, but also Hilary Mantel's interpretation of them.

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Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy is like a sixteenth-century tapestry: we all wonder at its beauty and skill, but many will want to turn it over and distinguish between the fictional warp and the historical weave. For those curious minds, Lauren Mackay’s learned, eminently readable, and gorgeously illustrated Wolf Hall Companion neatly helps pick apart the threads.

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'Breathes new life into the Tudor dynasty and the people who lived during this time. … A sheer delight.'