I was at my desk, writing, when my husband called upstairs to tell me that Hilary Mantel had died. It stopped me in my tracks. It seemed impossible that the world should lose a writer of her unmatched craft and imagination, her general all-round brilliance, a writer who had given her readers such pleasure and delight, a huge intellect, and an inspiration to writers everywhere.

As a reader I devoured her fiction and also her essays. Everything she wrote or said about the writing process w...