Ackroyd, Peter

Ackroyd, Peter, 1949–, British author, b. London; studied Clare College, Cambridge (M.A., 1971) and Yale Univ. A literary journalist, he wrote for the Spectator (1973–82) and has reviewed books for the London Times since 1986. His early work includes three volumes of poetry (1973, 1978, 1987), a polemic on literary modernism (1976), and a study of transvestism (1979). His first novel, The Great Fire of London (1982), was followed by The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983), Hawksmoor (1985), Chatterton (1987), English Music (1992), Milton in America (1997), The Plato Papers (2000), and The Clerkenwell Tales (2004). Typically novels of ideas that defy traditional realism, his fiction frequently deals with the active interplay between the past and the present and often uses the city of London as both locale and thematic touchstone. English literary figures and murder most foul make frequent appearances in these works. Ackroyd is also a perceptive biographer whose subjects include Ezra Pound (1980, rev. ed. 1987), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), and J. M. W. Turner (2002). In addition, he has written a widely praised "biography" of London (2000) and a wide-ranging study of the English literary and artistic imagination, Albion (2003). Many of Ackroyd's literary critical essays are reprinted in The Collection (2001).

Bibliography

See studies by S. Onega (1999) and J. S. W. Gibson (2000).