The UK publishers of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy, 4th Estate, have revealed the incredible cover for the third and final book in the series, The Mirror and the Light, which will be released worldwide in March, 2020.
This book, which has been eight years in the making, will see Thomas Cromwell reckoning with the fallout of his victory over Anne Boleyn in the court of King Henry VIII, leading to his eventual beheading for treason in 1540. The previous two books in the series, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, made Hilary Mantel a dual Booker Prize-winner, and readers across the world will be eagerly waiting to see if she can earn herself a third.
Designed by Julian Humphries, the art director for 4th Estate and William Collins, the cover for The Mirror and the Light represents something of a visual departure from the previous two books, which seems fitting for the end of such a magnificent series.
The release of The Mirror and the Light will most likely be the publishing event of 2020 – check out the cover and read the blurb below!
‘If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?’
England, 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, Thomas 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, before Jane dies giving birth to the male heir he most craves.
Cromwell is a man with only his wits to rely on; he 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 breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. But can a nation, or a person, shed the past like a skin? Do the dead continually unbury themselves? What will you do, the Spanish ambassador asks Cromwell, when the king turns on you, as sooner or later he turns on everyone close to him?
With The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with 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 Mirror And The Light
Thomas Cromwell Trilogy: Book 3
'If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?'
England, 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, Thomas 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, before Jane dies giving birth to the male heir he most craves...
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Olivia Fricot
Olivia Fricot (she/her) is Booktopia's Senior Content Producer and editor of the Booktopian blog. She has too many plants and not enough bookshelves, and you can usually find her reading, baking, or talking to said plants. She is pro-Oxford comma.
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Comments
March 6, 2020 at 5:31 am
It will be really interesting to see if this book works: Although both of the other books are about Thomas Cromwell, the drama and story are provided by Anne Boleyn. Without her, I don’t know if it will measure up. Will certainly give it a chance