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 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. ...

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

, T. S. Eliot,

Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is consider ...

and

Sir Thomas More Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord ...

, he won the

Somerset Maugham Award The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each year by the Society of Authors. Set up by William Somerset Maugham in 1947 the awards enable young writers to enrich their work by gaining experience in foreign countries. The awa ...

and two

Whitbread Awards 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 ...

. He is noted for the volume of work he has produced, the range of styles therein, his skill at assuming different voices, and the depth of his research. He was elected a fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...

in 1984 and appointed a

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in 2003.

Early life and education

Ackroyd was born in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and raised on a

council estate Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council estates, council housing, or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011 when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in so ...

East Acton East Acton is an area in Acton in London, England, west of Charing Cross. It is partly in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and partly in the London Borough of Ealing. It is served by East Acton Underground station, on the Central ...

, in what he has described as a "strict"

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

household by his mother and grandmother, after his father disappeared from the family home. He first knew that he was gay when he was seven. He was educated at St. Benedict's,

Ealing Ealing () is a district in West London, England, west of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Ealing. Ealing is the administrative centre of the borough and is identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan. Ealing was histor ...

, and at

Clare College, Cambridge Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college was founded in 1326 as University Hall, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. It was refounded ...

, from which he graduated with a

double first The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied (sometimes with significant variati ...

in English literature. In 1972, he was a Mellon fellow at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

Work

The result of his Yale fellowship was ''Notes for a New Culture'', written when Ackroyd was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, an echo of T. S. Eliot's ''Notes Towards the Definition of Culture'' (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for exploring and re-examining the works of other London-based writers. He worked at ''

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 ...

'' magazine between 1973 and 1977 as literary editor and became joint managing editor in 1978, a position he held until 1982. He worked as chief book reviewer for ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' and was a frequent broadcaster on radio. Since 1984 he has been a

fellow of the Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 600 Fellows, elec ...

. His literary career began with poetry; his work in that field includes such works as ''London Lickpenny'' (1973) and ''The Diversions of Purley'' (1987). In 1982 he published ''The Great Fire of London'', his first novel, which is a reworking of

' novel ''

Little Dorrit ''Little Dorrit'' is a novel by Charles Dickens, originally published in serial form between 1855 and 1857. The story features Amy Dorrit, youngest child of her family, born and raised in the Marshalsea prison for debtors in London. Arthur Cl ...

''. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". However, this transition to being a novelist was unexpected. In an interview with Patrick McGrath in 1989, Ackroyd said:

I enjoy it, I suppose, but I never thought I'd be a novelist. I never wanted to be a novelist. I can't bear fiction. I hate it. It's so untidy. When I was a young man I wanted to be a poet, then I wrote a critical book, and I don't think I even read a novel till I was about 26 or 27.

In his novels he often contrasts historical settings with present-day segments (e.g. ''The Great Fire of London'', ''Hawksmoor'', ''The House of Doctor Dee''). Many of Ackroyd's novels are set in London and deal with the ever-changing, but at the same time stubbornly consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, especially its writers:

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

in ''The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde'' (1983), a fake autobiography of Wilde;

Nicholas Hawksmoor Nicholas Hawksmoor (probably 1661 – 25 March 1736) was an English architect. He was a leading figure of the English Baroque style of architecture in the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. Hawksmoor worked alongside the principa ...

, Sir

Christopher Wren Sir Christopher Wren PRS FRS (; – ) was one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches ...

and Sir

John Vanbrugh Sir John Vanbrugh (; 24 January 1664 (baptised) – 26 March 1726) was an English architect, dramatist and herald, perhaps best known as the designer of Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He wrote two argumentative and outspoken Restora ...

in ''Hawksmoor'' (1985);

Thomas Chatterton Thomas Chatterton (20 November 1752 – 24 August 1770) was an English poet whose precocious talents ended in suicide at age 17. He was an influence on Romantic artists of the period such as Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth and Coleridge. Altho ...

and

George Meredith George Meredith (12 February 1828 – 18 May 1909) was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. At first his focus was poetry, influenced by John Keats among others, but he gradually established a reputation as a novelist. ''The Ord ...

in ''Chatterton'' (1987);

John Dee John Dee (13 July 1527 – 1608 or 1609) was an English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, teacher, occultist, and alchemist. He was the court astronomer for, and advisor to, Elizabeth I, and spent much of his time on alchemy, divinatio ...

in ''The House of Dr Dee'' (1993);

Dan Leno George Wild Galvin (20 December 1860 – 31 October 1904), better known by the stage name Dan Leno, was a leading English music hall comedian and musical theatre actor during the late Victorian era. He was best known, aside from his music hall ...

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

George Gissing George Robert Gissing (; 22 November 1857 – 28 December 1903) was an English novelist, who published 23 novels between 1880 and 1903. His best-known works have reappeared in modern editions. They include '' The Nether World'' (1889), '' New Gr ...

and

Thomas De Quincey Thomas Penson De Quincey (; 15 August 17858 December 1859) was an English writer, essayist, and literary critic, best known for his '' Confessions of an English Opium-Eater'' (1821). Many scholars suggest that in publishing this work De Quinc ...

in ''Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem'' (1994);

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem '' Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political ...

in ''Milton in America'' (1996);

Charles Lamb Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 – 27 December 1834) was an English essayist, poet, and antiquarian, best known for his '' Essays of Elia'' and for the children's book '' Tales from Shakespeare'', co-authored with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764� ...

in ''The Lambs of London''. ''Hawksmoor'', winner of both the

Whitbread Novel Award 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 ...

and the

Guardian Fiction Prize The Guardian Fiction Prize was a literary award sponsored by ''The Guardian'' newspaper. Founded in 1965, it recognized one fiction book per year written by a British or Commonwealth writer and published in the United Kingdom. The award ran for 33 ...

, was inspired by

Iain Sinclair Iain Sinclair FRSL (born 11 June 1943) is a writer and filmmaker. Much of his work is rooted in London, recently within the influences of psychogeography. Biography Education Sinclair was born in Cardiff in 1943. From 1956 to 1961, he was educate ...

's poem "Lud Heat" (1975), which speculated on a mystical power from the positioning of the six churches Nicholas Hawksmoor built. The novel gives Hawksmoor a Satanical motive for the siting of his buildings, and creates a modern namesake, a policeman investigating a series of murders. ''Chatterton'' (1987), a similarly layered novel explores plagiarism and forgery and was shortlisted for the

Booker Prize The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a Literary award, literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United King ...

. '' London: The Biography'' is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages. In 1994 he was interviewed about the

London Psychogeographical Association The London Psychogeographical Association (LPA), sometimes referred to as the London Psychogeographical Committee, is an organisation devoted to psychogeography. The LPA is perhaps best understood in the context of psychogeographical praxis. Lo ...

in an article for ''

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 w ...

'', in which he remarked:

I truly believe that there are certain people to whom or through whom the territory, the place, the past speaks. ... Just as it seems possible to me that a street or dwelling can materially affect the character and behaviour of the people who dwell in them, is it not also possible that within this city (London) and within its culture are patterns of sensibility or patterns of response which have persisted from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and perhaps even beyond?

In the sequence ''London: The Biography'' (2000), ''Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination'' (2002), and ''Thames: Sacred River'' (2007), Ackroyd has produced works of what he considers historical

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

. These books trace themes in London and English culture from the ancient past to the present, drawing again on his favoured notion of almost spiritual lines of connection rooted in place and stretching across time. His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

(1980), T. S. Eliot (1984),

(1990),

(1995),

Thomas More Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord ...

(1998),

Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He wa ...

(2004),

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

(2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction. Ackroyd was forced to think of new methods of biography writing in ''T. S. Eliot'' when he was told he couldn't quote extensively from Eliot's poetry and unpublished letters. From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (''Voyages Through Time''), intended for readers as young as eight, his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series—described as "Not just sound-bite snacks for short attention spans, but unfolding feasts that leave you with a sense of wonder" by ''

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, whi ...

'' is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history. In a 2012 interview with Matthew Stadlen of the BBC, when asked the question, "Who do you think is the person who has made the biggest impact upon the life of this country ever?", Ackroyd said, "I think William Blake is the most powerful and most significant philosopher or thinker in the course of English history." In the same interview, when asked what fascinates him about London, he said he admired "its power, its majesty, its darkness, its shadows." When asked what he did outside of writing, he said, "I drink, that's about it."

Personal life

Ackroyd had a long-term relationship with Brian Kuhn, an American dancer he met while at Yale. After a nervous breakdown in the late 1980s, Ackroyd moved to

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

with Kuhn. However, Kuhn was then diagnosed with

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

and died in 1994, after which Ackroyd moved back to London. In 1999, he suffered a heart attack and was placed in a medically induced coma for a week. In a 2004 interview, Ackroyd said that he had not been in a relationship since Kuhn's death and was "very happy being

celibate Celibacy (from Latin ''caelibatus'') is the state of voluntarily being unmarried, sexually abstinent, or both, usually for religious reasons. It is often in association with the role of a religious official or devotee. In its narrow sense, th ...

List of works

Poetry

*1971 ''Ouch!'' *1973 ''London Lickpenny'' *1978 ''Country Life'' *1987 ''The Diversions of Purley and Other Poems''

Fiction

*1982 '' The Great Fire of London'' *1983 '' The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde'' *1985 ''

Hawksmoor Nicholas Hawksmoor (probably 1661 – 25 March 1736) was an English architect. He was a leading figure of the English Baroque style of architecture in the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. Hawksmoor worked alongside the principa ...

'' *1987 ''Chatterton'' *1989 ''First Light'' *1992 ''

English Music English music may refer to: * Folk music of England * Music of the United Kingdom Throughout the history of the British Isles, the United Kingdom has been a major music producer, drawing inspiration from Church Music. Traditional folk music ...

'' *1993 '' The House of Doctor Dee'' *1994 ''

Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem ''Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem'' (published in the United States as ''The Trial of Elizabeth Cree'') is a 1994 novel by the English author Peter Ackroyd. It is a murder mystery framed within a story featuring real historical characters, and ...

'' (also published as ''The Trial of Elizabeth Cree'') *1996 ''Milton in America'' *1999 ''The Plato Papers'' *2000 ''The Mystery of Charles Dickens'' *2003 ''

The Clerkenwell Tales ''The Clerkenwell Tales'' is an historical novel by English writer Peter Ackroyd, first published in 2003. Plot summary The novel is set in London in the year 1399, a year of revolt, revolution and religious conspiracy. As Henry Bolingbroke chall ...

'' *2004 ''The Lambs of London'' *2006 ''The Fall of Troy'' *2008 ''The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein'' *2009 ''

The Canterbury Tales ''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''Masterpiece, ...

– A Retelling'' *2010 '' The Death of King Arthur: The Immortal Legend – A Retelling'' *2013 ''Three Brothers'' *2020 ''Mr Cadmus''

Non-fiction

*1976 ''Notes for a New Culture: An Essay on Modernism'' *1979 ''Dressing Up: Transvestism and Drag, the History of an Obsession'' *1980 ''Ezra Pound and His World'' *1984 ''T. S. Eliot'' *1987 ''Dickens' London: An Imaginative Vision'' *1989 ''Ezra Pound and his World'' (1989) *1990 ''Dickens'' *1991 ''Introduction to Dickens'' *1995 ''Blake'' *1998 ''The Life of Thomas More'' *2000 '' London: The Biography'' *2001 ''The Collection: Journalism, Reviews, Essays, Short Stories, Lectures'' *2002 ''Dickens: Public Life and Private Passion'' *2002 ''Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination'' *2003 ''The Beginning'' *2003 ''Illustrated London'' *2004 ''Escape From Earth'' *2004 ''Ancient Egypt'' *2004 ''Chaucer'' (Nan A. Talese, Doubleday: Ackroyd's Brief Lives) *2005 ''Shakespeare: The Biography'' *2005 ''Ancient Greece'' *2005 ''Ancient Rome'' *2006 ''J.M.W. Turner'' (Nan A. Talese, Doubleday: Ackroyd's Brief Lives) *2007 ''Thames: Sacred River'' *2008 ''Coffee with Dickens'' (with Paul Schlicke) *2008 ''Newton'' (Nan A. Talese, Doubleday: Ackroyd's Brief Lives) *2008 ''Poe: A Life Cut Short'' (Nan A. Talese, Doubleday: Ackroyd's Brief Lives) *2009 ''Venice: Pure City'' *2010 ''The English Ghost'' *2011 ''London Under'' *2011 ''The History of England, v.1 Foundation'' *2012 ''Wilkie Collins'' (Nan A. Talese, Doubleday: Ackroyd's Brief Lives) *2012 ''The History of England, v.2

Tudors The House of Tudor was a royal house of largely Welsh and English origin that held the English throne from 1485 to 1603. They descended from the Tudors of Penmynydd and Catherine of France. Tudor monarchs ruled the Kingdom of England and it ...

'' *2014 ''The History of England, v.3 Civil War'' (also available as ''Rebellion: The History of England from James I to the Glorious Revolution'') *2014 ''Charlie Chaplin'' *2015 ''Alfred Hitchcock'' *2016 ''The History of England, v.4 Revolution'' *2017 ''

Queer City ''Queer City: Gay London from Romans to the Present Day'' is a 2017 book by British biographer, novelist and critic Peter Ackroyd. Background and synopsis ''Queer City'' follows the history and experiences of the LGBT population of London beginn ...

: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day'' *2018 ''The History of England, v.5 Dominion'' *2021 ''The History of England, v.6 Innovation'' *2021 ''Introducing Swedenborg'' *2022 ''The Colours of London'' *2023 ''The English Actor: From Medieval to Modern''

Television

*2002 ''

Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

'' (

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. ...

...

Early life and education

Work

Personal life

List of works

Poetry

Fiction

Non-fiction

Television

Honours and awards

See also

References

Citations

Sources

External links