On the other hand I found Wolf Hall and its sequels rather underwhelming, and failed to evoke a sense of the past. It's characters seemed to think as if they were living in today's world, and it is lacking in description and establishment of a firmly historical premises.

For example it makes no effort to give a sense of the vocabulary or pattern of speech of its time.

So in which sense Wolf Hall is to be feated as great historical novel in a language which has a grand tradition of historical novels from the time of Walter Scott onwards is debatable.