A Memoir of My Former Self by Hilary Mantel review – B-sides and rarities

A posthumous collection of the Booker-winner’s nonfiction shows her lesser-known works to be the equal of her hits

The grand-sounding title and subtitle of this book, published a year after Hilary Mantel’s death, make it out to be a sort of autobiography. In fact it’s a bran tub, an odds-and-sods collection of Mantel’s journalism from 1987 to 2017, mostly shorter and less formal than the essays collected in Mantel Pieces.

No, it is not a memoir, but a writer leaves an impression of themselves on every page, in both the events they recount and the ideas they return to, and the autobiographical material – arranged by Mantel’s longtime editor Nicholas Pearson – extends themes from her 2003 memoir Giving Up the Ghost, including her childhood and her ill-health and infertility. Of the women in her family she writes, “Our story stops with me”. Continue reading...


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