Juliet Nicolson (born 9 June 1954) is a British author and journalist.

Biography

Nicolson was born in

Bransgore Bransgore is a village and civil parish within the New Forest District, Hampshire, England. The village developed in the 19th century when a church and a school were built. It is technically classified as an urban area, although in some respects ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

to the writer and publisher

Nigel Nicolson Nigel Nicolson (19 January 1917 – 23 September 2004) was an English writer, publisher and politician. Early life and education Nicolson was the second son of writers Sir Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West; he had an elder brother Ben, ...

and his wife Philippa Tennyson-d’Eyncourt, and grew up at

Sissinghurst Sissinghurst is a small village in the borough of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England. Originally called ''Milkhouse Street'' (also referred to as ''Mylkehouse''), Sissinghurst changed its name in the 1850s, possibly to avoid association with the smu ...

. She read English Literature at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. She is the granddaughter of the writers

Vita Sackville-West Victoria Mary, Lady Nicolson, CH (née Sackville-West; 9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962), usually known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author and garden designer. Sackville-West was a successful novelist, poet and journalist, as wel ...

and

Harold Nicolson Sir Harold George Nicolson (21 November 1886 – 1 May 1968) was a British politician, diplomat, historian, biographer, diarist, novelist, lecturer, journalist, broadcaster, and gardener. His wife was the writer Vita Sackville-West. Early lif ...

. She is the sister of the writer Adam Nicolson, and the publisher Rebecca Nicolson.

Writing

Publishing and journalism

Between 1976 and 1994 she worked in publishing, first in London before spending ten years in New York working for Grove Atlantic Publishers. On returning to England in 1994 she became a literary agent at Ed Victor Ltd before becoming a freelance journalist in 2000 writing for publications including the ''Daily'' and ''Sunday Telegraph'', ''

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 Evening Standard'', ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...

'', and ''

Harper's Bazaar ''Harper's Bazaar'' is an American monthly women's fashion magazine. It was first published in New York City on November 2, 1867, as the weekly ''Harper's Bazar''. ''Harper's Bazaar'' is published by Hearst and considers itself to be the st ...

'' where she is now a contributing editor.

Books

Nicolson has published five books, including three works of

social history Social history, often called the new social history, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in his ...

, one memoir and a

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

. Three of these were selected as 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' ...

“Book of the Week”. The journalist

Tina Brown Christina Hambley Brown, Lady Evans (born 21 November 1953), is an English journalist, magazine editor, columnist, talk-show host, and author of '' The Diana Chronicles'' (2007) a biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, '' The Vanity Fair Diari ...

has said: ‘Juliet Nicolson has invented a new kind of social history.’ ''The Perfect Summer'' (published 2006) focuses on one sweltering season in 1911. ''The Great Silence'' (published 2009) is about three consecutive November 11ths from 1918-1920. ''Frostquake'' (published 2021) tells the story of one locked-down, snowy winter of 1962-3. Nicolson's memoir, ''A House Full of Daughters'' (published 2016) is an account of seven generations of daughters in her own family beginning with her great great grandmother, Pepita de Oliva, a Spanish

flamenco dancer Flamenco (), in its strictest sense, is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and ...

born in Malaga in 1830 and culminating with her granddaughter born in London in 2013. Nicolson’s novel ''Abdication'' (published 2012) is set in 1936 against the backdrop of the British Royal Family’s famous

constitutional crisis In political science, a constitutional crisis is a problem or conflict in the function of a government that the political constitution or other fundamental governing law is perceived to be unable to resolve. There are several variations to this d ...

Personal life

Nicolson is the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of four children. She lives with her husband, former diplomat Charles Anson CVO.

Books

*''The Perfect Summer, Dancing into Shadow in 1911'' ( John Murray 2006) *''The Great Silence 1918-20, Living in the Shadow of the Great War'' ( John Murray 2009) *''Abdication, a novel'' (

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...

2012) *''A House Full of Daughters, a memoir'' (

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 ...

2016) *''Frostquake, the frozen winter of 1962 and how Britain emerged a different country'' (

2021)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nicolson, Juliet English women journalists 21st-century English women writers 1954 births Living people 21st-century British non-fiction writers English women novelists English women non-fiction writers 21st-century English novelists British women memoirists Alumni of St Hugh's College, Oxford