Peter Ackroyd Books

Franklin Library Peter Ackroyd books

English Music - signed first edition - 1992

 

 

 

Peter Ackroyd biography

Peter Ackroyd, born on October 5, 1949, in London, England, is a versatile and prolific British author, biographer, and historian. His extensive body of work encompasses a wide range of genres, including novels, biographies, literary criticism, and historical studies. Ackroyd's writing is characterized by its depth, erudition, and a keen sense of place, often focusing on the history and culture of London.

Ackroyd was educated at Clare College, Cambridge, where he studied English literature. He started his literary career as a poet, with his early works gaining critical acclaim. However, he later transitioned into prose, becoming known for his imaginative and richly detailed historical novels.

One of Ackroyd's notable early works is Hawksmoor (1985), a novel that weaves together two narratives, one set in 18th-century London and the other in the 20th century, exploring themes of mysticism and architecture. His novel Chatterton (1987) delves into the life of the 18th-century poet Thomas Chatterton, blending fact and fiction.

Some of Ackroyd's notable novels include Hawksmoor, Chatterton, The House of Doctor Dee, and The Clerkenwell Tales. Many of his works are set in London and often blend historical and supernatural elements.

In addition to his fiction, Ackroyd has achieved recognition for his biographies. His biographical works often focus on literary and historical figures, such as William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, T.S. Eliot, and Thomas More. His biography of Dickens, titled Dickens: Public Life and Private Passion (1990), is particularly well-regarded for its thorough examination of the Victorian author's life and works.

Apart from his novels and biographies, Ackroyd has written extensively on London, exploring the city's history and culture. His work London: The Biography (2000) is a monumental exploration of the city's evolution from its early days to the modern era.

As a prolific and celebrated author, Ackroyd has received numerous awards for his contributions to literature, and he has been recognized for his ability to bring history and literature to life through his engaging and immersive writing style. His works continue to captivate readers with their exploration of the interplay between time, place, and the human experience.

 

 

English Music

From the prize-winning author of First Light, Chatterton, and Hawksmoor, a dazzlingly inventive and powerfully moving novel about the intricate ties between fathers and sons, between inheritance and culture, and between our understanding of the past and our grasp of the present. In post-World War I London, on the stage of the out-of-the-way Chemical Theatre, Clement Harcombe and his young, motherless son, Timothy, perform acts of spiritual healing, their visionary skills lifting the weight of despair and failure from the shoulders of their small band of followers. For Timothy, a boy with remarkable psychic gifts, it is a thrilling apprenticeship, a wonderful life with an adored father. But in the eyes of the larger world, it is a wayward existence with a suspect parent. And when Timothy is abruptly removed from his father's side, from the familiar twilit world of phantoms and ghosts, and thrust into the simple world of his grandparents' home in the country, he is not too young to feel 'bereft of his past'. Yet nothing can remove him from the realm of his visions. And as he passes from a difficult childhood into a troubled adulthood - his father slipping in and out of his life it is this other, private world that provides him with his only certainty. In his visions unanticipated and wholly enveloping Timothy is drawn into the creations of Charles Dickens and William Blake, Thomas Malory and Daniel Defoe, John Bunyan, Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Gainsborough and J.M.W. Turner. Accompanied by Merlin or Miss Havisham, William Byrd or William Hogarth, Crusoe's Friday or Wonderland's Alice, Timothy is swept across time and history. And as his mysterious journeys begin to illuminate the ideas that have shaped them, Timothy comes to discern the power of the writer over his characters, the composer over what is heard, the painter over what is perceived learns, finally, to hear the 'English music' his father described to him as a child.

The following is a list of books by Peter Ackroyd. This list of Peter Ackroyd books is for reference only and please note that not all titles may have been published as leather bound editions.

The Great Fire of London – 1982
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde – 1983
Hawksmoor - 1985
Chatterton – 1987
Milton in America - 1986
First Light - 1989
English Music – 1992
The House of Doctor Dee – 1993
Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem – 1994
Milton in America – 1996
Plato Papers, the - 1999
Clerkenwell Tales, the - 2003
Lambs of London, the - 2004
Fall of Troy, the - 2006