‘You could read this a dozen times and not come to the end of its originality, its moral intelligence, its gargantuan flair’ Katherine Rundell, author of Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne ‘Superbly readable…an assured and strange masterpiece’ Sunday Telegraph 'One of the best English novels of the 20th century' Diana Athill, The Oldie ‘Hilary Mantel has soaked herself in the history of the period…and a striking picture emerges of the exhilaration, dynamic energy and stark horror of those fearful days’ Daily Telegraph ‘I cannot think of a historical novel as good as this until one goes back to Marguerite Yourcenar’s “Memoirs of Hadrian”, published forty years ago.’ Evening Standard ‘Marvellous…It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Hilary Mantel captures it all’ Time Out ‘Intriguing…She has grasped what made these young revolutionaries – and with them the French Revolution – tick’ Independent ‘Crafty tensions, twists and high drama…a bravura display of her endlessly inventive, eerily observant style’ Times Literary Supplement ‘An extraordinary and overwhelming novel…immensely detailed and yet fast-moving…she has set herself to capture the excitement and intellectual fervour of the period. She does it admirably…a tour de force’ Scotsman 'Riveting…the book overflows with a natural storyteller's energy' New Yorker ‘Much, much more than a historical novel, this is an addictive study of power, and the price that must be paid for it…a triumph’ Cosmopolitan 'This is a high-class historical blockbuster' Red Magazine ‘Hilary Mantel has pulled off the apparently impossible…an ambitious, gripping epic’ Vogue