Jennifer Sheila Uglow (,
[ (accessed 5 February 2008).]
(accessed 19 August 2022). born 1947) is an English biographer, historian, critic and publisher. She was an editorial director of
Chatto & Windus
Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his business ...
. She has written critically acclaimed biographies of
Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many st ...
,
William Hogarth
William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraver, pictorial satirist, social critic, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like ...
,
Thomas Bewick
Thomas Bewick (c. 11 August 17538 November 1828) was an English wood-engraver and natural history author. Early in his career he took on all kinds of work such as engraving cutlery, making the wood blocks for advertisements, and illustrating ch ...
, and
Edward Lear, and a history and joint biography of the
Lunar Society
The Lunar Society of Birmingham was a British dinner club and informal learned society of prominent figures in the Midlands Enlightenment, including industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectuals, who met regularly between 1765 and 1813 ...
, among others, and has also compiled ''The Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography''.
She won the 2002
James Tait Black Memorial Prize
The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Uni ...
and the 2003
Hessell-Tiltman Prize
The Hessell-Tiltman History Prize is awarded to the best work of non-fiction of historical content covering a period up to and including World War II, and published in the year of the award. The books are to be of high literary merit, but not pr ...
for ''The Lunar Men: The Friends who Made the Future 1730–1810'', and her works have twice been shortlisted for the
Whitbread Prize
The Costa Book Awards were a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in UK and Ireland. Originally named the Whitbread Book Awards from 1971 to 2005 after its first sponsor, the Whitbread company, then ...
. She is a past president of the
Alliance of Literary Societies and has also chaired the Council of the
Royal Society of Literature.
Personal life
Uglow was brought up in
Cumbria
Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. C ...
and later
Dorset
Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...
.
She attended
Cheltenham Ladies' College
Cheltenham Ladies' College is an independent boarding and day school for girls aged 11 to 18 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. Consistently ranked as one of the top all-girls' schools nationally, the school was established in 1853 to p ...
(1958–64) and
St Anne's College,
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
. After gaining a first in English, she took a BLitt.
[ In 1971, she married Steve Uglow, professor emeritus at the ]University of Kent
, motto_lang =
, mottoeng = Literal translation: 'Whom to serve is to reign'(Book of Common Prayer translation: 'whose service is perfect freedom')Graham Martin, ''From Vision to Reality: the Making of the University of Kent at Canterbury'' ...
; the couple have two sons and two daughters. As of 2015, Uglow lives at Canterbury
Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of ...
in Kent.[Jenny Uglow website](_blank)
(accessed 5 February 2008).
Career
Uglow has worked in publishing since leaving university. Until 2013 she was editorial director of the publishing company Chatto & Windus
Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his business ...
, an imprint of Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
.
She is an honorary visiting professor at the University of Warwick
, mottoeng = Mind moves matter
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £7.0 million (2021)
, budget = £698.2 million (2020â ...
, vice-president of the Gaskell Society and a trustee of the Wordsworth Trust
The Wordsworth Trust is an independent charity in the United Kingdom. It celebrates the life of the poet William Wordsworth, and looks after Dove Cottage in the Lake District village of Grasmere where Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy Wordswor ...
. She was formerly a member of the British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
's Advisory Group for the Humanities.[
]
Biographies
Uglow compiled an encyclopaedia of biographies of prominent women, first published in 1982; the work is currently in its fourth edition and contains over 2,000 biographies, though later versions have involved other editors. Uglow later wrote:
Her first full-length biographies, depicting the Victorian women writers George Eliot
Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrot ...
(1987) and Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many st ...
(1993), continue her interest in documenting women and reflect her literary background. Gaskell scholar Angus Easson
Angus may refer to:
Media
* ''Angus'' (film), a 1995 film
* ''Angus Og'' (comics), in the ''Daily Record''
Places Australia
* Angus, New South Wales
Canada
* Angus, Ontario, a community in Essa, Ontario
* East Angus, Quebec
Scotland
* An ...
describes ''Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories'' as "the best current biography" of the author, and ''The Cambridge Companion to Elizabeth Gaskell'' refers to it as "authoritative".
Subsequent works have moved further into the past, with subjects including 18th century author Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding (22 April 1707 – 8 October 1754) was an English novelist, irony writer, and dramatist known for earthy humour and satire. His comic novel ''Tom Jones'' is still widely appreciated. He and Samuel Richardson are seen as founders ...
(1995), and artists William Hogarth
William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraver, pictorial satirist, social critic, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like ...
(1997) and Thomas Bewick
Thomas Bewick (c. 11 August 17538 November 1828) was an English wood-engraver and natural history author. Early in his career he took on all kinds of work such as engraving cutlery, making the wood blocks for advertisements, and illustrating ch ...
(2006). The scientists and engineers of the Lunar Society
The Lunar Society of Birmingham was a British dinner club and informal learned society of prominent figures in the Midlands Enlightenment, including industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectuals, who met regularly between 1765 and 1813 ...
, including Erasmus Darwin, Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton (; 3 September 172817 August 1809) was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century, the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engin ...
, James Watt, Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley (; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted exp ...
and Josiah Wedgwood
Josiah Wedgwood (12 July 1730 – 3 January 1795) was an English potter, entrepreneur and abolitionist. Founding the Wedgwood company in 1759, he developed improved pottery bodies by systematic experimentation, and was the leader in the indus ...
, are the subject of her prize-winning work ''The Lunar Men'' (2003).
Uglow's biographies have been particularly praised for their vivid, detailed recreation of the time and place in which their subjects lived. "No one gives us the feel of past life as she does" writes A. S. Byatt of ''Nature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick'', and a review of ''The Lunar Men'' in ''The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'' claims "never has the eighteenth century come so much to life." Reviewing ''Hogarth: A Life and a World'', Peter Ackroyd
Peter Ackroyd (born 5 October 1949) is an English biographer, novelist and critic with a specialist interest in the history and culture of London. For his novels about English history and culture and his biographies of, among others, William ...
wrote, "She depicts the city at first hand, almost as if she herself had been wandering through Hogarth's engravings." Frances Spalding
Frances Spalding (née Crabtree, born 16 July 1950) is a British art historian, writer and a former editor of ''The Burlington Magazine''.
Life
Frances Crabtree studied at the University of Nottingham and gained her PhD for a study of Roger Fr ...
considers ''Nature's Engraver'' to be "immeasurably enriched by Uglow's canny grasp of period detail." David Chandler, however, complains that "Uglow tends to amass detail on quotable detail, when sometimes one would like a little more taut synthesis, more interrogation of those details."
Uglow's depiction of scientific thought has also been praised; A. S. Byatt, for example, describes ''The Lunar Men'' as "full of ..the real sense that scientific curiosity is as exciting as any 'artistic' pursuit." Her discussion of art has gained a more mixed reception. ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' art critic Michael Kimmelman
Michael Kimmelman (born May 8, 1958) is the architecture critic for ''The New York Times'' and has written about public housing, public space, landscape architecture, community development and equity, infrastructure and urban design. He has repor ...
complains that Uglow overvalues Hogarth's paintings and neglects his artistic associates in favour of his literary ones. On the other hand, Helen Macdonald, reviewing ''Nature's Engraver'', considers that it is "in her descriptions of the physical process of artistic creation, and her musings on individual engravings, that Uglow is at her most energetic and fluid."
Other writing and editing
Uglow's non-biographical writing includes a history of gardening in Britain, written for the bicentenary of the Royal Horticultural Society
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity.
The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr (Nor ...
in 2004, which Uglow describes as a "labour of love". She is also a reviewer for ''The Times Literary Supplement
''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp.
History
The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...
'', ''The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...
'', ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', ''The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'' and ''The Independent on Sunday
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was published ...
''.[RSA Lectures: Jenny Uglow]
(accessed 5 February 2008).
Uglow has edited collections of writings by Walter Pater
Walter Horatio Pater (4 August 1839 – 30 July 1894) was an English essayist, art critic and literary critic, and fiction writer, regarded as one of the great stylists. His first and most often reprinted book, ''Studies in the History of the Re ...
(1973) and Angela Carter
Angela Olive Pearce (formerly Carter, Stalker; 7 May 1940 – 16 February 1992), who published under the name Angela Carter, was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picar ...
(1997), as well as co-editing a set of essays about Charles Babbage (1997). She has also written introductions to several works by Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many st ...
.
Radio, television and film
Uglow presented ''The Poet of Albion'', a BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
programme on William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...
, part of a series marking the 250th anniversary of the poet's birth; the programme emphasised Blake's radicalism. She has also twice appeared on the Radio 4 discussion programme, '' In Our Time''. She acted as a historical consultant on several period dramas for the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
'' (2006).
(2003). Her biographies ''Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories'' and ''Hogarth: A Life and a World'' were both shortlisted for the
for biography, and several of her books have reached the shortlist or longlist of the
.