If you liked
Books like Bring Up the Bodies
by Hilary Mantel
Bring Up the Bodies is the middle Cromwell novel and the one that won Hilary Mantel her second Booker, following Thomas Cromwell as he engineers the fall of Anne Boleyn with terrifying precision. If you want more Tudor-grade intelligence and prose, these are the picks.
The shortlist
What to read next
Wolf Hallby Hilary Mantel
“Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel 2009 review. Thomas Cromwell, the blacksmith's son who rose to serve Henry VIII, reorganizes the English state at the cost of his own soul. Booker Prize 2009 and the most important historical novel of the twenty-first century.”
The Mirror & the Lightby Hilary Mantel
“The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel 2020 review. The final volume of the Cromwell trilogy, covering Thomas Cromwell from the execution of Anne Boleyn to his own arrest and execution four years later. The eight-year-awaited closure of the most important historical-fiction project of the twenty-first century.”
Hamnetby Maggie O'Farrell
“Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell 2020 review. The death of William Shakespeare's eleven-year-old son and the four years before Hamlet is written. The Women's Prize winning novel about marriage, grief, and the play that came out of it.”
The Marriage Portraitby Maggie O'Farrell
“The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell 2022 review. Lucrezia di Cosimo de' Medici recognizes that her husband, the Duke of Ferrara, intends to kill her. O'Farrell's Hamnet follow-up.”
The Pillars of the Earthby Ken Follett
“The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett 1989 review. The building of a twelfth-century English cathedral against the backdrop of civil war. The 1,024-page novel that defined the modern epic historical fiction.”
Cold Mountainby Charles Frazier
“Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier 1997 review. A wounded Confederate deserter walks across the Civil-War-era Carolinas to return home. National Book Award 1997 and the basis for the 2003 Minghella film.”
FAQ
Common questions about Bring Up the Bodies read-alikes
- Do I read the rest of the trilogy?
- Absolutely. Wolf Hall comes first and The Mirror and the Light closes the arc at full scale. The three read as one continuous performance, and Bring Up the Bodies only gains from the books on either side of it.
- I want another writer at Mantel's sentence level.
- Maggie O'Farrell is the natural next stop. Hamnet reimagines the death of Shakespeare's son and The Marriage Portrait enters a Renaissance Italian court, both with the same intimacy and refusal of costume-drama cliche.
- I want the same period with more plot momentum.
- The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett runs on incident and cathedral-building ambition rather than interiority. A different, faster pleasure if Mantel's density ever wears you down.
- I want historical fiction that reads as literature.
- Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier sits in the same rank, a Civil War novel with the prose taken seriously. Along with the O'Farrell novels, it is the best answer to "give me Mantel's quality in another century."
The original