Dame Hilary Mantel, who has died suddenly aged 70, was late to become a household name, but once she did, there was no stopping her. The arrival of the third volume of her Wolf Hall trilogy – after an eight-year wait during which it felt as if the whole reading world was holding its breath – was announced on a billboard in Leicester Square emblazoned simply with the Tudor rose and the characteristically plain opening words of the first novel: “So now get up.” For readers, the great benefit of this late blooming was that there is a whole backlist to burrow through, revealing a writer with a range far beyond the dark corridors of the Tudor court. In chronological order, here are some of her greatest hits.
