It was only when I began to explore the contest between Thomas Cromwell and Thomas More that I realized I was writing the climax of a novel, not merely another chapter. The facts of history are plain enough, but the shape of the drama was late to emerge, and the triple structure later still. In my mind, the trilogy remains one long project, with its flickering patterns of light and dark, its mirrors and shadows. What I wanted to create is a story that reflects but never repeats, a sense of history listening and talking to itself.

Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self-…, loc. 1141