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Quote by Hilary Mantel

“One of the frustrations of someone like Thomas Cromwell is that, before they step into the light of history, and become extremely well documented, they are not known. A king might be well documented but not everyone.”

Quote by Hilary Mantel

Author

British author Hilary Mantel is renowned for her historical novels, particularly for her Thomas Cromwell series, which has earned her international acclaim. Mantel's works are celebrated for their profound insights and literary achievements. more

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“The more facts I can have, the better. I can operate very nicely between them, but I am not very good at making things up. I am not sure how ethical it is.”

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“I am not a historian. I don't see what I do as being a rival to biography.”

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“It's complementary. It's fairly clear where the boundaries are. When I start telling you the contents of his head, I am making it up. But I try to make it up based on what is on the record. So even my wildest speculations [on Thomas Cromwell] will have a root somewhere.”

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“My first book was a historical novel. I started writing in 1974. In those days, historical novels meant ladies with swelling bosoms on the cover. Basically, it meant historical romance. It was not respectable as a genre.”

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“People who wrote literary novels about the past probably didn't want them pegged as historical fiction. Certainly that was true in England.”

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“I loved Gore Vidal's Burr. That book gave me courage.”

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“When I began to read as an adult, my first big enthusiasm was Evelyn Waugh. I read almost exclusively novelists of a generation back. I did the Russians, then I started getting more up to date.”

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“When you become published and become a reviewer, piles of books come along and you are pushed by fashion and what you are commissioned to do.”

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“The writer I adore is Ivy Compton-Burnett.I couldn't get more than a few pages in when I first read her. In many ways, she is very clumsy and her plots are rubbish. But we don't read her for that. There are pages and pages of dialogue. What it requires is real effort and attention.”

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“If I am feeling broken, I can pick up one of [Ivy Compton-Burnett] books and the next morning I can write again. It puts my mechanism back.”

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