Peter Ackroyd (born October 5, 1949, London) is an English author. October 5 is the 278th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (279th in Leap years). ... 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1949 calendar). ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2005 est. ...

Ackcroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm and his father had left home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers at the age of 5 and wrote a play about Guy Fawkes when he was 9. He also first realised he was gay at the age of 7.^[1]

Ackroyd won a double first in English at Clare College, Cambridge as an undergraduate and was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University, in the United States. The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading scheme for undergraduate degrees (bachelors degrees and some masters degrees) in the United Kingdom. ... The term English literature refers to literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was Polish, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Edgar Allan Poe was American, Salman Rushdie is Indian. ... Full name Clare College Motto - Named after Elizabeth de Clare Previous names University Hall (1326), Clare Hall (1338), Clare College (1856) Established 1326 Sister College(s) Oriel College St Hughs College Master Prof. ... The University of Cambridge, located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is a foundation endowed with wealth accumulated by the late Andrew W. Mellon. ... Yale redirects here. ...

His career started in poetry, including works such as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, including shortlisting for the Booker Prize in 1987. 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday. ... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Man Booker Prize for Fiction, also known as the Man Booker Prize, or simply the Man Booker, is one of the worlds most important literary prizes, and awarded each year for the best original novel written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland in...

Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. He was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1984 and is currently a regular radio broadcaster and book critic. The Spectator is a conservative British political magazine, established 1828, published weekly. ... The premises of the Royal Society in London (first four properties only). ...

Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London and one of his most recent works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages. In 2002 he followed this with the monumental cultural history of England, Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination.

From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The criticallly acclaimed series (Not just sound-bite snacks for short attention spans, but unfolding feasts that leave you with a sense of wonder, Sunday Times) is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history. The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper distributed in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International which is in turn owned by News Corporation. ...

Works

Fiction

• The Great Fire of London – 1982
• The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde – 1983
• Hawksmoor – 1985
• Chatterton – 1987 (shortlisted for the Booker Prize, 1987)
• First Light – 1989
• English Music – 1992
• The House of Doctor Dee – 1993
• Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem – 1994 (also published as The Trial of Elizabeth Cree)
• Milton in America – 1996
• The Plato Papers – 1999
• The Clerkenwell Tales – 2003
• The Lambs of London – 2004
• The Fall of Troy – 2006

1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Man Booker Prize for Fiction, also known as the Man Booker Prize, or simply the Man Booker, is one of the worlds most important literary prizes, and awarded each year for the best original novel written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland in... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by United Nations. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Old Farts by the Sometimes-United Nations. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Adult Non-fiction

• Notes for a New Culture: An Essay on Modernism – 1976
• Dressing Up: Transvestism and Drag: The History of an Obsession – 1979
• T. S. Eliot; A Life – 1984
• Dickens' London: An Imaginative Vision – 1987
• The Life of Thomas More – 1988
• Ezra Pound and his World – 1989
• Dickens – 1990
• An Introduction to Dickens – 1991
• Blake – 1996
• London: The Biography – 2000
• Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination – 2002
• Shakespeare: The Biography – 2005

1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... This page refers to the year 1979. ... 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year. ... 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... This article is about the year 2000. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Children's non-fiction (Voyages Through Time series)

• The Beginning – 2003
• Escape From Earth – 2004
• Kingdom of the Dead – 2004
• Cities of Blood – 2004
• Ancient Greece – 2005
• Ancient Rome – 2005

2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Plays

• The Mystery of Charles Dickens – 2000

This article is about the year 2000. ...

Television / documentary

BBC unless otherwise noted

• 2004, London (television)
• 2006 The Romantics

2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... London was a 2004 three-part BBC history documentary series about the history of London, presented by Peter Ackroyd. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• A more in-depth biography
• Guardian Books "Author Page", with profile and links to further articles.
• Excerpt from London: The Biography
• 1991 Audio Interview with Peter Ackroyd Discussing the Life of Charles Dickens - RealAudio (29 min 6 s)
• Peter Ackroyd at the Internet Book List
• Peter Ackroyd at the Internet Book Database of Fiction
• Peter Ackroyd at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

The Internet Book List (IBList) is an online database with information about books, authors, short stories, etc. ... The Internet Book Database of Fiction (IBDoF) is an online database for books, mostly works of fiction. ... The Internet Speculative Fiction Database is a database of bibliographic information on science fiction and related genres such as fantasy fiction and horror fiction. ...

See also

• Children's Non-Fiction / Nonfiction Authors

List of authors who have written non-fiction / nonfiction (informational) books for children. ...

References

1. ^ Guardian Unlimited story on Peter Ackroyd, Retrieved January 2006