was Hilary Mantel’s surprise sequel to
Wolf Hall, as only two books, rather than three, were originally planned. This decision is especially notable as
Bring Up the Bodieswent on to make literary history for Mantel by winning her the Booker prize for the second time. She explained its chance arrival just before it was published:
When I came to write about the destruction of Anne Boleyn (a destruction which took place, essentially, over a period of three weeks) the process of writing and the writing itself took on an alarming intensity, and by the time Anne was dead I felt I had passed through a moral ordeal. I can only guess that the effect on the reader will be the same; the events are so brutal that you don’t want to take a breath and turn the page, you want
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Citation: Pollard, Eileen. "Bring Up the Bodies". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 October 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=34709, accessed 26 November 2024.]