Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl is a historical novel which has enjoyed phenomenal success since it was first published in 2001. Testament to the popularity of Gregory’s novel is the fact that it has since paved the way for an astonishingly rapid series of sequels – The Queen’s Fool (2004), The Virgin’s Lover (2004), The Constant Princess (2005) and The Boleyn Inheritance (2006) – which, together, are now known collectively as Gregory’s “Tudor Court Series”. The novel is a fictionalised diaristic first-person narrative of the real, though often neglected, historical figure of Mary Boleyn, younger sister of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII. Commencing with the graphically depicted beheading of the Duke of Buckinghamshire soon after Mary’s first marriage to Lord William Carey in 1521, and concluding with Anne Boleyn’s execution on...
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Citation: Yiannitsaros, Christopher. "The Other Boleyn Girl". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 December 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=30709, accessed 07 March 2026.]
