Ackroyd, Peter

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English novelist, biographer, reviewer, and poet. His novel Hawksmoor (1985) won the Whitbread award, and T S Eliot (1984) won the Whitbread prize for biography. Ackroyd's other books include the novels Chatterton (1987), The House of Doctor Dee (1993), Milton in America (1996), and The Clerkenwell Tales (2003), and biographies of Ezra Pound (1987), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), and Thomas More (1998). His work often blurs the distinction between biography and fiction.

Ackroyd was born in London, England, which he describes as the ‘landscape for my imagination’ in most of his books. He was educated at Clare College, Cambridge, and Yale University, Connecticut. In 1973 he joined the staff of the Spectator magazine, becoming the principal book reviewer for The Times newspaper in 1986. He published two books of verse in the 1970s but gave up poetry as a medium of communication in favour of prose because of its comparative ‘intransigence’.

Modelled on the French tricolour, the vertical stripes represent liberty and revolution. The almost square proportions of the flag are unusual. Effective date: 23 January 1831. >>