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Synopsis

An extraordinary and brilliant work of historical imagination -- this is Mantel's epic novel of the French Revolution. A spellbinding novel which recounts the events between the fall of the Ancient Regime and the peak of the Terror, as seen through the eyes of the French Revolution's three protagonists -- Georges-Jacques Danton, Maximilien Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins, men whose mix of ambition, idealism, and ego helped unleash the darker side of the Revolution's ideals and brought them eventually to their own tragic ends. Critically acclaimed upon first publication, 'A Place of Greater Safety' is one of Mantel's most celebrated works of fiction.

Reviews

'One of the best English novels of the 20th century'
Diana Athill, Oldie

'Superbly readable...[a] richly idiosyncratic fictional history of the French Revolution...an assured and strange masterpiece.'
Sunday Telegraph

'I cannot think of a historical novel as good as this until on goes back to Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian , published forty years ago.'
Evening Standard

'Marvellous...her great achievement is not just in making these long-dead demagogues live and breathe, but setting them in a brilliantly-realised family context, and surrounding them with vivid womenfolk who question, challenge or endure. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Hilary Mantel captures it all.'
Time Out

'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

'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

'Riveting!the book overflows with a natural storyteller's energy'
New Yorker

'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

About the Author

Hilary Mantel was born in northern Derbyshire in 1952. She was educated at a convent school in Cheshire and went on to the LSE and Sheffield University, where she studied law. After university she was briefly a social worker in a geriatric hospital, and much later used her experiences in her novels Every Day is Mother's Day and Vacant Possession. In 1977 she went to live in Botswana with her husband, then a geologist. In 1982 they moved on to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, where she would set her third novel, Eight Months on Ghazzah Street. Her first novel was published in 1985, and she returned to the UK the following year. In 1987 she was awarded the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize for travel writing, and became the film critic of the Spectator. Her fourth novel, Fludd, was awarded the Cheltenham Festival Prize, the Southern Arts Literature Prize, and the Winifred Holtby Prize. Her fifth novel, A Place of Greater Safety, won the Sunday Express Book of the Year Award. A Change of Climate, published in 1993, is the story of an East Anglian family, former missionaries, torn apart by conflicts generated in Southern Africa in the early years of Apartheid. An Experiment in Love published in 1995, is a story about childhood and university life, set in London in 1970. It was awarded the Hawthornden Prize. Beyond Black, published in 2005, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize, while her most recent novel, Wolf Hall, won the 2009 Booker Prize.   Photograph © Jane Bown More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation