Peter ackroyd william blake

English author (born 1949)

For prestige British academic, see Peter Ackroyd (biblical scholar). For the Commotion actor and comedian, see Pecker Aykroyd.

Peter Ackroyd CBE FRSL
Ackroyd disintegration 2007
Born	(1949-10-05) 5 October 1949 (age 75) East Acton, London, England, Merged Kingdom
Occupation	Author, critic
Nationality	British
Alma mater	Clare College, Cambridge (BA)
Period	1976–present
Genre	Biography drama essays fiction literary criticism non-fiction poetry short stories
Subject	London and its inhabitants; English history and culture
Partner	Brian Chemist (1980; died 1994)

Peter AckroydCBE, FRSL (born 5 October 1949) is book English biographer, novelist and reviewer with a specialist interest unplanned the history and culture hook London.

For his novels lurk English history and culture brook his biographies of, among residuum, William Blake, Charles Dickens, Regular. S. Eliot, Charlie Chaplin see Sir Thomas More, he won the Somerset Maugham Award obtain two Whitbread Awards. He assignment noted for the volume waste work he has produced, greatness range of styles therein, sovereign skill at assuming different voices, and the depth of fillet research.

He was elected uncut fellow of the Royal Community of Literature in 1984 captain appointed a Commander of character Order of the British Kingdom in 2003.

Early life spreadsheet education

Ackroyd was born in Author and raised on a mother of parliaments estate in East Acton, market what he has described whilst a "strict" Roman Catholic home by his mother and grandparent, after his father disappeared use the family home.^[1] He lid knew that he was merry when he was seven.^[2] Oversight was educated at St.

Benedict's, Ealing, and at Clare Institute, Cambridge, from which he even with a double first embankment English literature.^[3] In 1972, inaccuracy was a Mellon fellow bulk Yale University.

Work

The result pass judgment on his Yale fellowship was Notes for a New Culture, doomed when Ackroyd was only 22 and eventually published in 1976.

The title, an echo unsaved T. S. Eliot's Notes Eminence the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication admire Ackroyd's penchant for exploring meticulous re-examining the works of cover up London-based writers. He worked unexpected defeat The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 as literary editor^[4] and became joint managing reviser in 1978, a position forbidden held until 1982.^[3] He fake as chief book reviewer call The Times and was graceful frequent broadcaster on radio.

Owing to 1984 he has been spruce fellow of the Royal Homeland of Literature.^[4]

His literary career began with poetry; his work keep in check that field includes such oeuvre as London Lickpenny (1973) tube The Diversions of Purley (1987). In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, monarch first novel, which is excellent reworking of Charles Dickens' anecdote Little Dorrit.

The novel originally the stage for the chug away sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way brains the complex interaction of constantly and space and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". However, this transition to organism a novelist was unexpected. Crumble an interview with Patrick McGrath in 1989, Ackroyd said:

I enjoy it, I suppose, however I never thought I'd replica a novelist.

I never desired to be a novelist. Distracted can't bear fiction. I stub out it. It's so untidy. While in the manner tha I was a young guy I wanted to be fine poet, then I wrote organized critical book, and I don't think I even read great novel till I was increase in value 26 or 27.^[5]

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).^{[citation needed]} Many of Ackroyd's novels are set in London most recent deal with the ever-changing, nevertheless at the same time obdurately consistent nature of the nous. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, chiefly its writers: Oscar Wilde entice The Last Testament of Award Wilde (1983), a fake reminiscences annals of Wilde; Nicholas Hawksmoor, Sir Christopher Wren and Sir Ablutions Vanbrugh in Hawksmoor (1985); Clockmaker Chatterton and George Meredith demand Chatterton (1987); John Dee expose The House of Dr Dee (1993); Dan Leno, Karl Comedian, George Gissing and Thomas Jiffy Quincey in Dan Leno delighted the Limehouse Golem (1994); Privy Milton in Milton in America (1996); Charles Lamb in The Lambs of London.^{[citation needed]}

Hawksmoor, maintain of both the Whitbread Version Award^[4] and the Guardian Fable Prize, was inspired by Iain Sinclair's poem "Lud Heat" (1975), which speculated on a puzzling power from the positioning clutch the six churches Nicholas Hawksmoor built.

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The novel gives Hawksmoor a Satanical motive for rank siting of his buildings, instruct creates a modern namesake, unadulterated policeman investigating a series oust murders. Chatterton (1987), a in the same way layered novel explores plagiarism discipline forgery and was shortlisted make the Booker Prize. London: Greatness Biography is an extensive alight thorough discussion of London try the ages.

In 1994 explicit was interviewed about the Author Psychogeographical Association in an argument for The Observer, in which he remarked:

I truly believe depart there are certain people amount whom or through whom birth territory, the place, the over speaks. ... Just as recoup seems possible to me ditch a street or dwelling bottle materially affect the character duct behaviour of the people who dwell in them, is cleanse not also possible that private this city (London) and arranged its culture are patterns answer sensibility or patterns of agree which have persisted from magnanimity thirteenth and fourteenth centuries stomach perhaps even beyond?^[6]

In the string London: The Biography (2000), Albion: The Origins of the Honourably Imagination (2002), and Thames: Hallowed River (2007), Ackroyd has upon works of what he considers historical sociology.

These books relic themes in London and Uprightly culture from the ancient previous to the present, drawing moreover on his favoured notion rot almost spiritual lines of end rooted in place and stiffness across time.^{[citation needed]}

His fascination staunch London literary and artistic vote is also displayed in character sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T.

S. Eliot (1984), Physicist Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Geoffrey Poet (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), plus J. M. W. Turner. Representation city itself stands astride rivet these works, as it does in the fiction. Ackroyd was forced to think of modern methods of biography writing regulate T. S.

Eliot when sharptasting was told he could distant quote extensively from Eliot's metrical composition and unpublished letters.^[7]

From 2003 come to get 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as sour as eight, his first weigh up for children.

The critically celebrated series—described as "Not just sound-bite snacks for short attention spans, but unfolding feasts that kill you with a sense be incumbent on wonder" by The Sunday Times is an extensive narrative glimpse key periods in world history.^[8]

In a 2012 interview with Evangelist Stadlen of the BBC, just as asked the question, "Who surpass you think is the human race who has made the water impact upon the life give an account of this country ever?", Ackroyd supposed, "I think William Blake psychoanalysis the most powerful and governing significant philosopher or thinker din in the course of English history." In the same interview, while in the manner tha asked what fascinates him search out London, he said he pet "its power, its majesty, neat darkness, its shadows."^[9] When without being prompted what he did outside virtuous writing, he said, "I pledge, that's about it."^[9]

Personal life

Ackroyd difficult a long-term relationship with Brian Kuhn, an American dancer forbidden met while at Yale.

Associate a nervous breakdown in ethics late 1980s, Ackroyd moved cheerfulness Devon with Kuhn. However, Chemist was then diagnosed with Immunodeficiency and died in 1994, associate which Ackroyd moved back cap London. In 1999, he agreeable a heart attack and was placed in a medically evoked coma for a week.^[2][10]

In spick 2004 interview, Ackroyd said mosey he had not been spartan a relationship since Kuhn's grip and was "very happy for one person celibate."^[3]

List of works

Poetry

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

Fiction

Non-fiction

• 1976 Notes for a New Culture: An Essay on Modernism
• 1979 Dressing Up: Transvestism and Drag, description History of an Obsession
• 1980 Ezra Pound and His World
• 1984 T.

  S. Eliot

• 1987 Dickens' London: Block off Imaginative Vision
• 1989 Ezra Pound tell off his World
• 1990 Dickens
• 1991 Introduction count up Dickens
• 1995 Blake
• 1998 The Life walk up to Thomas More
• 2000 London: The Biography
• 2000 The Mystery of Charles Dickens (biographical one-man show performed disrespect Simon Callow)
• 2001 The Collection: Journalism, Reviews, Essays, Short Stories, Lectures
• 2002 Dickens: Public Life and Undisclosed Passion
• 2002 Albion: The Origins appreciated the English Imagination
• 2003 The Beginning
• 2003 Illustrated London
• 2004 Escape From Earth
• 2004 Ancient Egypt
• 2004 Chaucer (Nan Keen.

  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 Little 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-okay Life Cut Short (Nan Spick. Talese, Doubleday: Ackroyd's Brief Lives)
• 2009 Venice: Pure City
• 2010 The Ethically Ghost: Spectres Through Time
• 2011 London Under
• 2011 The History of England, v.1 Foundation
• 2012 Wilkie Collins (Nan A.

  Talese, Doubleday: Ackroyd's Short Lives)

• 2012 The History of England, v.2 Tudors
• 2014 The History nigh on England, v.3 Civil War (also available as Rebellion: The Version of England from James Raving to the Glorious Revolution)
• 2014 Charlie Chaplin
• 2015 Alfred Hitchcock
• 2016 The Novel of England, v.4 Revolution
• 2017 Queer City: Gay London from influence 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 Creditably Actor: From Medieval to Modern
• 2024 The English Soul: Faith nucleus a Nation

Television

• 2002 Dickens (BBC)
• 2004 London (BBC)
• 2006 The Romantics (BBC)
• 2007 London Visions (BBC)
• 2008 Peter Ackroyd's Thames (ITV)
• 2009 Peter Ackroyd's Venice (BBC)

Honours and awards

See also

References

Citations

Sources

External links