#11 in Historical fiction
Bring Up the Bodies
- 432
- Pages
- about 8 h
- Reading time
- Series 2015
- On screen
- NYT bestseller · 1 week on the list
- Booker Prize
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Our view
“Bring Up the Bodies” is a tense, dark historical novel that puts the reader inside the mind of Thomas Cromwell at the court of Henry VIII. The middle volume of a trilogy tracing his rise and fall, it draws its hold from showing power and its dangers through his eyes. It follows “Wolf Hall” and is better read after it.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Bring Up the Bodies is a historical novel by British writer Hilary Mantel, sequel to the award-winning Wolf Hall (2009), and part of a trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, the powerful minister in the court of King Henry VIII. It won the 2012 Man Booker Prize and the 2012 Costa Book of the Year. The final novel in the trilogy is The Mirror & the Light (2020).
Reading order · Wolf Hall
Full order & progress →- Wolf HallStart here
8.08.0 / 10 - Bring Up the BodiesThis book
8.58.5 / 10 - The Mirror and the Light
–Not ranked yet
On screen
This book has been adapted for the screen once.
- SeriesWolf Hall: The Mirror and the LightIMDb
Adaptation data: Wikidata · On screen →
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.7 across 207 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 58% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Historical fiction average of 8.0. That is how 8.5 comes out. A further +0.10 comes from the small bonus for major awards.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.1 | 14 | 7% |
| Hardcover | 8.7 | 193 | 93% |
Frequently asked
How long is Bring Up the Bodies?
It has 432 pages — longer than 52% of the ranked books in Historical fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Historical fiction — and a score of 8.5, the closest to this book.
