Best-selling author Dame Hilary Mantel left her entire £4million fortune to her childhood sweetheart husband, documents reveal.
The historical novelist died suddenly of a stroke in September, 2022, aged 70, having amassed a fortune of £4,677,327, which later reduced to a net sum of £4,182,353.
She left the entirety of her wealth to her geologist husband Gerald McEwen, who had abandoned geology to manage his wife’s business.
He was the sole executor of her will, which was signed in March, 2018, under the writer’s married name, Hilary McEwen.
The couple who lived in Budleigh Salterton, Devon, first married in 1972 when Hilary was 20, having met four years earlier at the age of 16.
They divorced in 1981, but later remarried in 1982.
She said two years before her death: ‘We got married when we were very young, we were 19, 20 and still students.
‘Everyone predicted doom, it wasn’t doom, it worked but my illness and the crisis it occasioned was too difficult for us to surmount and we broke up and divorced for a couple of years.’
Pictured: Hilary Mantel and husband Gerald McEwen. The author left her entire fortune to her geologist husband
The renowned writer penned 12 novels and two collections of short stories during her illustrious career, which saw her win the Booker Prize twice
Mantel was unable to have children because of a severe form of endometriosis, which led her to have a surgical menopause at the age of 27 in what was considered to be a vital treatment.
In 2005, she revealed that her anger at not being able to have children was a contributing factor in her two-year divorce from her husband, as well as her ever-declining health since the age of 19.
She said she was still haunted by the ‘ghosts’ of the children she could not have and the motherhood of which her illness robbed her.
When the couple reunited at 30, they took their vows again and remained together until Mantel’s death.
The renowned writer penned 12 novels and two collections of short stories during her illustrious career, which saw her win the Booker Prize twice – the first woman to do so.
The first win honoured her 2009 novel Wolf Hall, a fictional account of Thomas Cromwell’s rise to power in the court of Henry VIII.
And the second was for its 2012 sequel, Bring Up The Bodies.
The third instalment of the Cromwell trilogy, The Mirror And The Light, was longlisted for the same prize.
Mantel’s first Booker Prize win honoured her 2009 novel Wolf Hall, a fictional account of Thomas Cromwell’s rise to power in the court of Henry VIII
The trilogy was adapted for TV in two BBC drama series, starring Damian Lewis
Following the trilogy’s wild success, having sold more than five million copies, the books were adapted for TV in two BBC drama series, starring Mark Rylance as Cromwell and Homeland actor Damian Lewis as Henry VIII
The BBC dramatisation was a huge success with the corporation selling on rights to the show around the world, adding to Mantel’s fortune in royalties.
Indeed, in her final year of life, Mantel saw her wealth leap by £2million thank to the riotous success of her last book The Mirror And The Light.
The value of her company leaped from £3.8million to £5.8million, accounts for her ‘artistic creation’ business Tertius Enterprises Limited showed.
The novel sold almost 2 million copies in the UK alone when it was published in 2020.
The Dame’s publisher HarperCollins announced it was ‘heartbroken at the death of our beloved author’, who passed ‘suddenly yet peacefully’ with her close family and friends at her side.
