Curated playlist
Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
- Frederick S. BoasFrederick S. Boas gave Thomas Kyd, author of The Spanish Tragedy, a scholarly edition in 1901.
- Jack ScarisbrickHistorian Jack Scarisbrick argued that most English people did not want the Reformation.
- J. R. R. TolkienOn his 21st birthday, Tolkien proposed by letter to a woman who was already engaged.
- Agatha ChristieAgatha Christie vanished for 11 days in 1926, and a nationwide manhunt followed. She was found at a Harrogate hotel.
- Rudyard KiplingRudyard Kipling turned down both a knighthood and the Poet Laureateship. He won the 1907 Nobel Prize in Literature.
- Thomas HardyThomas Hardy's heart and ashes were buried in two different places. The Abbey got his ashes, Stinsford his heart.
- George Bernard ShawBernard Shaw accepted the 1925 Nobel Prize but rejected the money. He said his audiences gave him enough.
- Emma ThompsonEmma Thompson is the only person to win Oscars for both acting and screenwriting.
- Salman RushdieA fatwa ordering Salman Rushdie's execution was broadcast on Radio Tehran on Valentine's Day 1989.
- Samuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge coined the phrase "suspension of disbelief." He also battled opium addiction for years.
- James Wood (critic)Harold Bloom praised critic James Wood in 1999, then said in 2008 that Wood simply does not exist.
- Antony BeevorAntony Beevor swapped a troop of tanks for a typewriter. The army officer became a historian of war.
- Nick CaveNick Cave is an Australian singer whose first famous band earned a reputation as “the most violent live band in the world.” That sounds like the biography of a man who burns out young. Instead, he spent the following decades writing novels…
- William DalrympleA book on an 1839 war led William Dalrymple to brief Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He also briefed the White House.
- Tom StoppardTom Stoppard arrived in England knowing not a word of Czech. He fled Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia as a child.
- Hilary MantelHilary Mantel became the first woman to win the Booker Prize twice. Her winners were Wolf Hall and its sequel.
- H. F. M. PrescottH. F. M. Prescott wrote a novel about a Tudor uprising that has never gone out of print.
- Eric HobsbawmMI5 blocked Eric Hobsbawm from a BBC job in 1945 over his communism. He later became a celebrated historian.
- Philip LarkinPhilip Larkin turned down the job of Poet Laureate in 1984. He felt he had long since stopped being a poet.
- Kevin Crossley-HollandKevin Crossley-Holland failed his first Oxford exams, then found his lifelong passion. It was Anglo-Saxon literature.
- John KeeganJohn Keegan taught war for 26 years but never fired a shot in anger. Illness left the historian unfit for service.
- Correlli BarnettMichael Heseltine gave every Cabinet member a copy of Correlli Barnett's The Lost Victory.
- Vincent CroninVincent Cronin's history books sold well, but scholars did not always welcome them.
- A. L. RowseA china clay worker's son from Cornwall claimed to name Shakespeare's Dark Lady.
- Frank KermodeIn 1996, city refuse collectors carted off critic Frank Kermode's boxes of valuable books. He sued for £20,000.
- George SteinerGeorge Steiner was born Francis George Steiner on the 23rd of April 1929. He was a literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist and educator, and he is described as both French and American. Harriet Harvey-Wood, a former literature…
- Martin GilbertA boy evacuated to Canada in wartime grew up to write Churchill's official biography.