Double Booker Prize winner Dame Hilary Mantel, author of the epic Wolf Hall trilogy, has died aged 70.

In a statement, her publisher 4th Estate books said: “We are heartbroken at the death of our beloved author, Dame Hilary Mantel, and our thoughts are with her friends and family, especially her husband, Gerald.

“This is a devastating loss and we can only be grateful she left us with such a magnificent body of work.”

Dame Hilary is best known for the Wolf Hall trilogy of which Diarmaid MacCulloch, Oxford theology professor and biographer of Thomas Cromwell said: “Hilary has reset the historical patterns through the way in which she’s reimagined the man.”

She won the Booker Prize for Wolf Hall, and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies – the conclusion to the trilogy.

The Mirror and the Light, was published in 2020 to huge critical acclaim. It was an instant number one fiction best-seller and longlisted for Booker Prize the same year, winning the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, which she first won for Wolf Hall.

Paying tribute, publishers HarperCollins described Dame Hilary as “one of the greatest English novelists of this century”.

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“Her beloved works are considered modern classics. She will be greatly missed.”

Bill Hamilton, Dame Hilary’s agent at literary agency A.M. Heath, said it had been the “greatest privilege” to work with her throughout her career, adding she would also be remembered for “her capacity to electrify a live audience”.

He said: “Her wit, stylistic daring, creative ambition and phenomenal historical insight mark her out as one of the greatest novelists of our time.”

“Emails from Hilary were sprinkled with bon mots and jokes as she observed the world with relish and pounced on the lazy or absurd and nailed cruelty and prejudice,” he said.

“There was always a slight aura of otherworldliness about her, as she saw and felt things us ordinary mortals missed, but when she perceived the need for confrontation she would fearlessly go into battle.

“And all of that against the backdrop of chronic health problems, which she dealt with so stoically. We will miss her immeasurably, but as a shining light for writers and readers she leaves an extraordinary legacy. Our thoughts go out to her beloved husband Gerald, family and friends,” he added.

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