The Mirror & the Light: A Novel
Written by Hilary Mantel
Narrated by Ben Miles
4.5/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
"The many listeners enthralled by the earlier two volumes in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy will find all their expectations met in this final installment... Here is a narrative achievement of the highest order." — AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner
This program is read by Ben Miles, who played Thomas Cromwell in the Royal Shakespeare Company adaptation of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies
*This program includes a bonus conversation between Ben Miles and Hilary Mantel*
“If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?”
With The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with her peerless, Booker Prize-winning novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage.
The story begins in May 1536: Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour.
Cromwell, a man with only his wits to rely on, has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to the breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. All of England lies at his feet, ripe for innovation and religious reform. But as fortune’s wheel turns, Cromwell’s enemies are gathering in the shadows. The inevitable question remains: how long can anyone survive under Henry’s cruel and capricious gaze?
Eagerly awaited and eight years in the making, The Mirror & the Light completes Cromwell’s journey from self-made man to one of the most feared, influential figures of his time. Portrayed by Mantel with pathos and terrific energy, Cromwell is as complex as he is unforgettable: a politician and a fixer, a husband and a father, a man who both defied and defined his age.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company
"Miles’ familiarity with Mantel’s portrayal of Cromwell pervades his performance of The Mirror & the Light, which traces Cromwell’s fall from greatness, beginning with the aftermath of Anne Boleyn’s beheading and ending with his own.Miles’ voice carries the power-hungry statesman’s monumental final act with ease and a delicate nuance, as only someone with a deep understanding of the story could." - BookPage
"Ben Miles — Group Captain Peter Townsend in “The Crown” — has, in addition to narrating this final volume, taken on the massive task of delivering “Wolf Hall” and “Bring up the Bodies,” as well. He also played Cromwell in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of “Wolf Hall Parts One & Two,” and captures again the man’s voice, its taint of baseness, its ups and downs and quiet ruthlessness." -- Washington Post
Editor's Note
Cromwell’s conclusion…
The final installment in Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning trilogy follows the ascension of Thomas Cromwell to his most influential position within Henry VIII’s court. But as Cromwell gains power, he gains more powerful enemies, too. An excellent conclusion to one of the most celebrated series in recent memory.
Hilary Mantel
HILARY MANTEL was the author of the bestselling novel Wolf Hall and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, which both won the Booker Prize. The final novel of the Wolf Hall trilogy, The Mirror & the Light, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and won world-wide critical acclaim. Mantel wrote seventeen celebrated books, including the memoir Giving Up the Ghost, and she was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, the Walter Scott Prize, the Costa Book Award, the Hawthornden Prize, and many other accolades. In 2014, Mantel was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. She died at age seventy in 2022.
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Reviews for The Mirror & the Light
53 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ben Miles voices so many characters with depth that you forget it’s one person bringing the web of history seen by Hillary Mantel‘s mind.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beautifully written and narrated! Having been in quarantine the last couple of weeks, this was the perfect way to pass the time! Alot of digression but otherwise perfect novel of the last part of Thomas Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal to Henry VIII.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shows much more of Thomas Cromwell’s inner thoughts, his hidden Lutheranism at odds with his overwhelming desire for power and riches
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Best. Trilogy. Ever. Didn't want it to end. Gorgeously written Text so rhythmic and rich, pleasing to the ear. Cromwell's complex character is captured with skillful nuance. Must see this text on the page, so will buy Mantel's trilogy to enjoy it all over again. No small feature making this astounding was Ben Mile's narration.