Huntington U: Hilary Mantel and Historical Fiction
Huntington U is a college-style seminar with no homework or tests. This spring the series continues as Mark Eaton (Claremont Graduate University) leads participants on a six-week course to explore the work of the late Hilary Mantel, a writer who brought renewed interest to historical fiction through her acclaimed Wolf Hall trilogy. We will start the seminar with an excerpt (about 65 pages) of Mantel’s earlier novel about the French Revolution, titled A Place of Greater Safety (1992). Then we will dive into the Wolf Hall Trilogy by reading excerpts from Wolf Hall (2009), Bring Up the Bodies (2012) in its entirety, and excerpts of The Mirror & the Light (2020). Throughout the course, we will think about what makes Hilary Mantel’s historical fiction so compelling and so plausible.
Participants will learn how to read historical fiction more critically by asking questions such as:
- How does Hilary Mantel strike an appropriate balance between historical accuracy and fictional embellishment?
- What kinds of archival sources does she use, and how exactly?
- What is different about historical fiction as compared to narrative nonfiction and history?
Participants will also be privileged to learn from curators at the Huntington Library about archival materials in the Hilary Mantel papers that are part of The Huntington’s collections.
View/download the course syllabus
For questions about this course, please contact Joy Yamahata via email at JHarding@Huntigton.org or by phone at 626-405-3457.
About the Instructor
Mark Eaton is a research associate professor of American literature at Claremont Graduate University. He is also a professor emeritus of English at Azusa Pacific University. He has taught at Pepperdine University and was a visiting professor of film studies at the University of Oklahoma. He has held research fellowships at Oxford University and the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey. He is the author of Religion and American Literature since 1950 (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020) and the co-editor along with Bruce Holsinger of Historical Fiction Now (Oxford University Press, 2023). His chapter titled “Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, Historical Fiction, and New Novels of Slavery” is forthcoming in Approaches to Teaching Colson Whitehead, edited by Stephanie Li (Modern Language Association, 2026).
Before Hilary Mantel published the Man Booker Prize–winning Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012), she had written nine novels, including A Change of Climate (1994), An Experiment in Love (1995), and The Giant, O’Brien (1998). | The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
In 2010 at The Huntington, Hilary Mantel (left) and Mary Robertson pored over a parchment legal document bearing Thomas Cromwell’s signature, while Mantel’s husband, Gerald McEwen, looked on. Photo by Sue Hodson. | The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
A display of several items from the Hilary Mantel Papers. | The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
In-Person Class Ticketing Policies
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Tickets are not sold at the door for this event.
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To join the waitlist for this event, please email publicprograms@huntington.org. A space is not guaranteed, and you will be contacted if a space becomes available.
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To receive a refund, you must cancel at least 5 days prior to the event. Cancellations made within 5 days of the event will not be refunded.
