Charlotte Gray (1929), 2004 Vintage paperback edition

Sebastian Faulks is a highly acclaimed British novelist. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 390 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (760 × 1168 pixel, file size: 602 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) http://www. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 390 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (760 × 1168 pixel, file size: 602 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) http://www. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ...

Family and early life

Faulks was born on 20 April 1953 the son of Peter Ronald Faulks, a Berkshire solicitor (later to become a judge)and Pamela Faulks (nee Lawless). He grew up in Newbury. His mother, a repertory actress, was both cultured and highly strung, and had a breakdown when he was 10 (which, he says, played into a fascination with how people tick). His maternal grandfather, Philip Henry Lawless, enlisted in the 1st Battalion, 28th county of London Regiment, otherwise known as The Artists' Rifles. In 1917, Lawless moved to the 26th Battalion Middlesex Regiment and finished the war in Salonika. He was decorated several times and received the Military Cross in 1918, the standard Victory Medal, the British War Medal and the 1914 Star. He eventually left the Army and returned to work as a wine merchant - his father's original occupation. His paternal grandfather, Major James Faulks (Major was his name, not a military rank) was an accountant who had previously worked as a schoolmaster at a private boarding school in Tunbridge Wells, while Major's provisions merchant father, William Robert Faulks, supplied dairy products in late Victorian Paddington.^[1] Faulks' father wanted him to become a diplomat ^[2]. He himself admits his first ambition was to be a taxi driver until at the age of fifteen, whilst reading George Orwell, he decided to become a novelist instead. In fact, he is the only member of his paternal family not to be a lawyer; his father and uncle were judges and his brother Edward is a QC specialising in medical negligence. April 20 is the 110th day of the year (111th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The 21st Special Air Service Regiment (Artists) (Volunteers) is a special forces regiment of the British Territorial Army. ... Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903[1][2] – 21 January 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. ...

Faulks was educated at Wellington College and studied English at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He took a teaching job after university before moving into journalism, becoming a features writer for the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, and was recruited by the Independent as Literary Editor in 1986. He soon became the Deputy Editor of the Independent on Sunday before leaving in 1991 to concentrate on writing. He has been a columnist for The Guardian (1992-8) and The Evening Standard (1997-9). He continues to contribute articles and reviews to a number of newspapers and magazines including the Spectator, the Good Book Guide, the Literary Review, and Books and Bookmen. Wellington College, Berkshire, the national monument to the Duke of Wellington, is an English public school, which was granted its royal charter in 1853. ... 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, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, Salman Rushdie is Indian, V.S... of the Emmanuel College College name Emmanuel College Named after Jesus Christ (Emmanuel) Established 1584 Location St Andrews Street Admittance Men and women Master The Lord Wilson of Dinton Undergraduates 500 Graduates 100 Sister college Exeter College, Oxford College Website Boat Club Wesite Emmanuel front court and the Wren... The University of Cambridge (often Cambridge University), located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world and has a reputation as one of the worlds most prestigious universities. ... The Independents old (pre-compact) masthead. ... The Guardian is a British newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. ... Headlines of the Evening Standard on the day of London bombing on July 7, 2005, in Waterloo Station The Evening Standard is a London tabloid newspaper published and sold in London and surrounding areas, and is technically a local paper, although it carries considerable influence. ... The Spectator is a British conservative political magazine, established 1828, published weekly. ... Literary Review was founded in 1979 for people who love reading. ...

He wrote and presented the Channel 4 Television series 'Churchill's Secret Army', screened in 1999. Sebastian Faulks lives with his wife, Veronica (formerly his assistant at The Independent) and their three children in Ladbroke Grove, London. He works from his study in a top floor flat of a house in Holland Park Avenue, ten minutes from his home, starting work at 10am and finishing at 6pm, regardless of whether he is writing a book or not.^[3]

Novels

His first novel, A Trick of the Light, was published in 1984 when Faulks was 31 and he was finding writing hard-going as he himself says:

In 1989 he published the first of his ‘French trilogy’, The Girl at the Lion d'Or. This was followed by the second book, Birdsong (1993), which has sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide. Faulks says in an interview, Font cover of Girl at the lion dor The Girl at the Lion DOr is a novel by the author Sebastian Faulks published by Vintage. ... Bird song refers to the sounds, usually melodious to the human ear, made by many birds of the order Passeriformes as a form of communication. ...

The trilogy was completed with Charlotte Gray (1998) [made into a movie directed by Gillian Armstrong and starring Cate Blanchett (2002)]. On Green Dolphin Street was published in 2001 and Faulks had two books published in 2005: Human Traces and The Footprints on Mount Low. The Imperial War Museum is a museum in London featuring military vehicles, weapons, war memorabilia, a library, a photographic archive, and an art collection of 20th century and later conflicts, especially those involving Britain, and the British Empire. ... Charlotte Gray is a 1999 book by Sebastian Faulks. ... Gillian Armstrong (born December 18, 1950 in Melbourne, Australia) is a film director. ... Catherine Élise Blanchett (born on May 14, 1969) is an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award-winning Australian actress. ...

In 1999, Sebastian Faulks wrote and presented the Channel 4 series 'Churchill’s Secret Army'. One of Sebastian Faulks’ most acclaimed non-fiction works is the The Fatal Englishman: Three Short Lives, a multiple biography of artist Christopher Wood, airman Richard Hillary, and spy Jeremy Wolfenden. Pistache, a collection of essays, was published in 2006 and Sebastian Faulks’ latest novel is Engleby (2007). Christopher Wood could refer to: Christopher Wood, the artist. ... Flight Lieutenant Richard H. Hillary (born 20 April 1919 in Sydney, Australia - died 8 January 1943) was a Battle of Britain pilot who died during World War II. He is best known for his book The Last Enemy, based upon his experiences during the Battle of Britain. ... Jeremy Wolfenden ( 26 June 1934, England -December 28, 1965) Foreign Correspondent and British Spy at the height of the Cold War. ...

Sebastian Faulks was awarded the CBE in 2002 and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

In July 2007, it was revealed that he had become the latest author to write an official James Bond novel, Devil May Care, at the request of the estate of the original 007 author Ian Fleming.^[6] It is due to be released on May 28, 2008, to mark the 100th anniversary of Fleming's birth. Flemings image of James Bond; commissioned to aid the Daily Express comic strip artists. ... Devil May Care is a forthcoming James Bond novel by Sebastian Faulks. ... Ian Lancaster Fleming (May 28, 1908 – August 12, 1964) was a British author, journalist and Second World War Naval Officer. ... May 28 is the 148th day of the year (149th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2008 (MMVIII) will be a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Additional detail:

• In April 2003 Birdsong came 13th in the BBC's Big Read initiative which aimed to identify Britain's best loved novels^[7].
• Sebastian Faulks appears regularly on British TV and Radio — most particularly on BBC Radio 4's The Write Stuff, in which James Walton is joined by regular captains Sebastian Faulks and John Walsh for a literary quiz with a twist.
• In 1998 Faulks won the Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award. He also supports West Ham United.

The British Broadcasting Corporation, which is usually known as the BBC, is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the United Kingdom alone and with a budget of more than GB£4 billion. ... The Big Read was a 2003 survey carried out by the BBC, with the goal of finding the Nations Best-loved Book by way of a viewer vote via the Web, SMS and telephone. ... BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of chiefly spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history. ... The Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award is an award given annually to the author who produces the worst description of a sex scene in a novel. ...

Literary Themes

Sebastian Faulks is one of Britain's most popular novelists, an undoubted master at blending the modern history of England, France, and America with traditional elements of romance, and he has a widespread following, particularly among women readers. His strong background in national newspaper journalism shows through in his narrative fluency and his ability to convincingly fictionalise aspects of recent history within his works.^[8]

Faulks's novels are mostly about conflict: conflict of the heart and conflict of the battlefield. Birdsong, for example, draws on the experiences of his grandfather, Philip Henry Lawless. With its magnificent evocation of the hellishness of the great war - soldiers trapped in tunnels and trenches, maimed, maddened and ultimately destroyed by a war with no purpose - is regarded as his best book. But the books are about more than war; for many readers they are primarily love stories.

The human costs of love and war are his essential subjects. An underlying theme in all his novels being the pressure that public events exert on the individuals caught up in them. Faulks was asked in a 2001 interview why he is so fixated on war and he says,

Faulks often seems to be at war with himself: the radical free spirit stifled by his conservatism; the hedonist and the ascetic; the artist and businessman. You can also see in his novels that he has a very obvious masculine side to his writing (war, technology, DIY) and a very obvious feminine side (love, landscape, romance) which don't merge but rather co-exist side by side.

Faulks is also a Francophile (with an agreeably European slant on the whole question of 'Englishness'), and he writes in a lushly descriptive vein about the pleasures of sexual passion, food and drink, the French small town and its surrounding landscape, as well as the anguish of separation and the wounding effects of the past.^[10] Although he doesn't consider himself a romantic novelist per se, he does state,

As Dr Jules Smith aptly states in a critical profile of Faulks: '... there are definite elements of sentimental contrivance in Faulks' writing as well as wartime nostalgia. He is a conscious, and very skilled, manipulator of his readers' emotions. But such is the enjoyment factor, luscious romantic detailing, and sheer narrative drive of his books that they completely carry one along with them. Taken as a whole, his 'French' trilogy is a considerable achievement, and all his books are highly enjoyable; read them as romances, as historical witness or simply as an Englishman's highly attractive view of the seductions of French and American culture.'^[12]

The new James Bond novel, Devil May Care

Sebastian Faulks has been chosen by the trustees of Ian Fleming's estate as the writer of a new 007 novel to mark the centenary of Fleming's birth (Fleming was born on May 28, 1908). The new book, titled Devil May Care and to be published next May, is set in the Cold War. Bond is widowed and vulnerable but remains heroically gallant and libidinous. Ian Lancaster Fleming (May 28, 1908 – August 12, 1964) was a British author, journalist and Second World War Naval Officer. ... 007 refers to either James Bond or Korean Airlines Flight 007 which was shot down in 1983 over Soviet airspace. ... May 28 is the 148th day of the year (149th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... Devil May Care is a forthcoming James Bond novel by Sebastian Faulks. ...

Faulks finished the book in six weeks and has followed the Bond style with exotic locations, glamorous women and larger-than-life villains. He says Devil May Care is about 80 per cent Fleming and is set in 1967, the year after Fleming's final Bond book - a collection of short stories called Octopussy and the Living Daylights - was published posthumously. Corinne Turner, the managing director of Ian Fleming Publications which commissioned the book, said the Fleming family "was delighted with it". According to the author, Bond "... has been through a lot of bad things. He is slightly more vulnerable than any previous Bond but at the same time he is both gallant and highly sexed if you like". ^[13] Flemings image of James Bond; commissioned to aid the Daily Express comic strip artists. ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ... Octopussy and The Living Daylights (sometimes published as Octopussy) is the fourteenth and final James Bond book written by Ian Fleming. ...

Bibliography

Fiction

• A Trick of the Light Bodley Head (1984)
• The Girl at the Lion D'or Hutchinson (1989)
• A Fool's Alphabet Hutchinson (1992)
• Birdsong Hutchinson (1993)
• The Fatal Englishman: Three Short Lives Hutchinson (1996)
• Charlotte Gray (novel) Hutchinson (1998)
• On Green Dolphin Street (Hutchinson 2001)
• Human Traces (Hutchinson 2005) ISBN 0-09-179687-3
• The Footprints on Mount Low Hutchinson (2005)
• Engleby Hutchinson (2007)
• Devil May Care (forthcoming, 2008)

Non-fiction Font cover of Girl at the lion dor The Girl at the Lion DOr is a novel by the author Sebastian Faulks published by Vintage. ... Front cover of A Fools Alphabet A Fools Alphabet is a 1993 novel by author Sebastian Faulks. ... Birdsong is a 1993 war novel by the English author Sebastian Faulks. ... Charlotte Gray is a 1999 book by Sebastian Faulks. ... Cover of On Green Dolphin Street On Green Dolphin Street is a novel by the author Sebastian Faulks. ... Human Traces (ISBN 0-09-179687-3) is a 2005 novel by Sebastian Faulks, best known as the British author of Birdsong and Charlotte Gray. ... The tone or style of this article or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. ... Devil May Care is a forthcoming James Bond novel by Sebastian Faulks. ...

• The Vintage Book of War Stories (editor with Jorg Hensgen) Vintage (1999)
• The Fatal Englishman: Three Short Lives (1996)
• Pistache (an essay collection) Hutchinson (2006)

Prizes and awards

• 1994 British Book Awards Author of the Year
• 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction) shortlist: Charlotte Gray
• 2002 CBE

References

1. ^ The Daily Telegraph, Family detective, 30th June, 2007 [[1]]
2. ^ The Australian, Books, April 28, 2007 'Parting with the art of war [[2]]
3. ^ The Telegraph, 6 May, 2007, 'Different Faulks',[[3]]
4. ^ The Telegraph, 6 May, 2007, 'Different Faulks', [[4]]
5. ^ The Telegraph, 6 May, 2007, 'Different Faulks'
6. ^ "Faulks pens new James Bond novel", BBC News Online, BBC. 
7. ^ [[5]]
8. ^ Contemporary writers, critical perspective, Dr Jules Smith, 2002 [[6]]
9. ^ The Guardian, April 23, 2001, 'In love and war',[[7]]
10. ^ Contemporary writers, critical perspective [[8]]
11. ^ The Guardian, April 23, 2001, 'In love and war',[[9]]
12. ^ Contemporary writers, critical perspective, Dr Jules Smith, 2002 [[10]]
13. ^ The Daily Telegraph, 11.07.2007 [[11]]

External links

• The Official Sebastian Faulks Homepage
• The Big Read from the BBC
• The Write Stuff
• StoryCode lists books similar to Birdsong,On Green Dolphin Street and Human Traces
• Sebastian Faulks at www.contemporarywriters.com