Ackroyd, Peter (1949-…), an English author, gained distinction as a literary biographer, editor, novelist, and critic. Ackroyd made his reputation with his historical novels and, in particular, his literary biographies. All are noted for their accuracy in imitating the literary style and mannerisms of past writers, and for their power in evoking the past in an authentic, immediate way.
Ackroyd’s biographies include Ezra Pound and His World (1980, revised 1987) and T. S. Eliot: A Life (1984), which won the Whitbread Award (now the Costa Literary Award) for Nonfiction and the Heinemann Award of the Royal Society of Literature. Ackroyd also wrote the biographies Dickens (1990), a life of the novelist Charles Dickens; Blake (1995), a study of the poet and artist William Blake; Thomas More (1998), a biography of the great Tudor statesman and author; and Poe: A Life Cut Short (2009), a life of the American writer Edgar Allan Poe.
Ackroyd began a six-volume history of England with Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (2011) and Tudors: The History of England from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I (2012). He is also the author of three nonfiction studies of English history and culture: Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination (2002), London: The Biography (2003), and The Thames: Sacred River (2007). The Canterbury Tales (2009) is Ackroyd’s retelling in modern English of Geoffrey Chaucer’s famous collection of stories written in the late 1300’s. In The Death of King Arthur (2011), Ackroyd retold stories about King Arthur as collected by Sir Thomas Malory in England during the 1400’s. Venice: Pure City (2010) is a historical portrait of the Italian city.
Ackroyd’s novel The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983) is an early example of his ability to capture the personality of a famous writer while producing an imaginative work of fiction. The book won the 1984 Somerset Maugham Prize. Hawksmoor (1985) centers on an English architect of the 1700’s. It won the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel and the Guardian Fiction Prize. Chatterton (1987) portrays the young English poet Thomas Chatterton. Among Ackroyd’s other novels are The Great Fire of London (1982), First Light (1989); English Music (1992); The House of Doctor Dee (1993); Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (1994); Milton in America (1996); The Plato Papers (1999); The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (2009); and Mr Cadmus (2020).
Ackroyd was born on Oct. 5, 1949, in London into a working-class family. He was educated at St. Benedict’s School in Ealing. He later attended Clare College at Cambridge University and Yale University in the United States. Ackroyd’s writing career began in the 1970’s with London Lickpenny (1973), a volume of poetry which is surrealist (characterized by a dreamlike distortion of reality). His other equally surreal poetical works include Country Life (1978) and The Diversions of Purley and Other Poems (1987). From 1973 to 1981, Ackroyd worked for the British weekly magazine The Spectator, first as literary editor and then, from 1977, as joint managing editor. He contributed many book and motion-picture reviews to the magazine and became known for his sharp criticism. In 1986, he became chief book reviewer for The Times of London.
