Hilary Mantel papers

Scope and Content Note -- Part I and Addenda

The collection is comprised primarily of manuscripts and correspondence of British author Hilary Mantel (1952-2022). Manuscripts include short stories, lectures, radio plays, articles and reviews, as well as various drafts and notes for Mantel's novels. Notably, all four drafts of A Place of Greater Safety are present, including Mantel's early drafts written while living in Saudi Arabia. Copious notes for The Giant, O'Brien are present, as well as significant notes for Fludd and A Change of Climate. The 2005 addenda include prolific notes and drafts of Beyond Black.

Personal and business correspondence with a number of other prominent authors and figures is present, including Elizabeth Jane Howard, Barbara Epstein, Norman Hampson, Lesley Glaister, Miranda Miller and Auberon Waugh. Email strings have been catalogued according to the oldest full email present, with added entries made for the authors of email replies and significant addressees, excepting Hilary Mantel.

SEALED: Boxes 47-52, 174-195 contain Mantel's diaries and are sealed for the lifetime of Mantel's widower, Gerald McEwen.

Mantel's engagement books are monthly planners to cover appointment and events from 1989-1997.

Ephemera includes printed items by and about Hilary Mantel, research materials, variants of cover art, publisher publicity for Mantel's books, and literature about various festivals and lectures with which Mantel has been involved. Of note are some materials relating to Mantel's life in Saudi Arabia, influential in her novel Eight Months on Ghazzah Street : an Arabic calendar, maps of Jeddah and a psychological evaluation of Mantel and her husband, Gerald McEwen.

Audio tapes and CDs include interviews with Hilary Mantel, readings from her novels, and various radio programs Mantel wrote for or was involved with.

Photographs include snapshots and professional portraits of Hilary Mantel and others. Some photographs appear to have been taken for book jackets.

Scope and Content Note -- Part II

The manuscripts in Part II include articles, short stories, interviews, and research, notes, and drafts for various novels, including Giving Up the Ghost and the first two novels in Mantel's Thomas Cromwell trilogy: Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. This material includes numerous drafts of the novels, play scripts and television adaptations based on the novels.

The correspondence includes Business Correspondence and Personal Correspondence; the Business Correspondence contains letters and emails from Mantel's publishers, agents, newspapers and magazines, and a large number of requests for Mantel to speak at various conferences and events. The Personal Correspondence is mainly letters and emails from family, friends and personal fan letters.

There are a number of topics covered extensively in both correspondence series: Endometriosis, Mantel's Booker Prize wins in 2009 and 2012, Mantel's work being plagiarized in 2005 by Judith Kelly in her memoir Rock Me Gently and the controversy caused by Mantel in her "Royal Bodies" comments in 2013.

This material also includes a small number of photographs, mainly snapshots and studio portraits, CDs and ephemera. The ephemera contains material about festivals, lectures, honorary degrees, financial reports and annotated envelopes; also included are a small number of engagement diaries. Scope and Content Note -- Part III The manuscripts in Part III include articles, book reviews, short stories, lectures and talks, interviews, and research, notes, and drafts for the third Cromwell novel The Mirror and the Light. There are also notes, research, and early drafts for Mantel's final unfinished novel about Jane Austen entitled Provocation. The material also includes business and personal correspondence, diaries, family papers, photographs, audiovisual, and ephemera.