The Mirror and the Light

The Mirror and the Light is a 2020 historical novel by the English writer Hilary Mantel, and the final novel published in her lifetime, appearing two and a half years before her death. Following Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, it is the last part of her trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, minister in the court of Henry VIII, and it covers the last four years of his life, from 1536 until his execution in 1540.

It was Mantel's twelfth novel and her first in almost eight years, published in March 2020 to widespread critical acclaim and brisk sales. Emily Temple of Literary Hub reported that the novel had appeared on thirteen lists of the best books of 2020, and it won the 2021 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction after being shortlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction.

The book's attention is on the machinery of government as much as on the plot of the reign, since Cromwell's position depends on administrative competence, patronage and the king's favour. It is written in the present tense and in close third person, which is the formal choice that distinguishes the trilogy from most historical novels of its scale.