Jenny Uglow

Jenny Uglow

OBE FRSL
Born1947 (age 78–79)
NationalityBritish
Alma mater
GenreNon-fiction
SubjectArts
Notable awardsJames Tait Black Memorial Prize
Hessell-Tiltman Prize
Marfield Prize
SpouseSteve Uglow, m. 1971
Children4

Jennifer Sheila Uglow (née Crowther,[1][2] born 1947) is an English biographer, historian, critic and publisher, and a former editorial director of Chatto & Windus. She has written critically acclaimed biographies of Elizabeth Gaskell, William Hogarth, Thomas Bewick, Edward Lear, and Gilbert White, as well as a group biography of the Lunar Society and a panoramic account of living in Britain through the Napoleonic wars.

Among various prizes and awards, she has won the 2002 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 2003 Hessell-Tiltman Prize for The Lunar Men: The Friends who Made the Future 1730–1810, and the 2018 Hawthornden Prize for Mr Lear: A Life of Art and Nonsense. She has also chaired the Council of the Royal Society of Literature, and was awarded the society's Benson Medal in 2012.[3] She has honorary degrees [4][5][6][7] and in 2008, she was awarded the OBE for services to literature and publishing.[1]

Early life and education

Uglow was brought up in Cumbria and later Dorset.[8] She attended Cheltenham Ladies' College (1958–64) and St Anne's College, University of Oxford.[9][10] After gaining a first in English, she took a BLitt.[8]

Career

After leaving university, Uglow worked in publishing and until 2013 was an editorial director of the publishing company Chatto & Windus, an imprint of Random House.[8][11]

She has been an honorary visiting professor at the University of Warwick,[12] and for many years acted as a trustee of the Wordsworth Trust.[13] She was formerly a member of the British Library's Advisory Group for the Humanities.[8] A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she is a past chair of its Council, and as of 2017, serves as one of its vice-presidents. She is also a Fellow of the Linnean Society, Vice-president of the Gaskell Society, and an honorary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford.

Biographies

Uglow compiled an encyclopaedia of biographies of prominent women, first published in 1982; the work is currently in its fourth edition and contains more than 2,000 biographies,[14][15] though later versions involved other editors. Uglow later wrote:

I embarked on the Macmillan Biographical Dictionary of Women in a fit of pique because all reference books were full of men: it was a mad undertaking, born of a time when feminists wanted heroines and didn't have Google.[16]

Her first full-length biographies, depicting the Victorian women writers George Eliot (1987) and Elizabeth Gaskell (1993), continued her interest in documenting women, and her literary background.

Subsequent works moved further into the past, with subjects including the 18th century author Henry Fielding (1995), and artists William Hogarth (1997), Thomas Bewick (2006) and Edward Lear. The scientists and engineers of the Lunar Society, including Erasmus Darwin, Matthew Boulton, James Watt, Joseph Priestley and Josiah Wedgwood, are the subject of her prize-winning work The Lunar Men (2003).[17]The Pinecone: A Life of Sarah Losh (2012), tells the story of a pioneering Victorian woman architect, while InThese Times (2014) is a large-scale group biography exploring the home front during the Napoleonic wars. Her latest book A Year with Gilbert White: The First Great Nature Writer (2025) examines the life of the 18th century naturalist Gilbert White through his journal for 1781.

Work on more recent periods includes Sybil and Cyril ( 2021),  a joint biography of the 1930s lino-cut artists Sybil Andrews and Cyril Power,  and The Quentin Blake Book (2022), which was written to mark the artist’s 90th birthday. [18]

Uglow's biographies have always been particularly praised for their vivid, detailed recreation of the time and place in which their subjects lived. "No one gives us the feel of past life as she does" writes A. S. Byatt of Nature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick,[19] and a review of The Lunar Men in The Observer claims "never has the eighteenth century come so much to life."[20] Her book on Gilbert White  was described in The Observer as ”A glorious celebration of curiosity and nature.”[21]

Other writing and editing

Uglow's non-biographical writing includes a history of gardening in Britain, written for the bicentenary of the Royal Horticultural Society in 2004, which Uglow describes as a "labour of love".[11]

She has also edited collections of writings by Walter Pater (1973) and Angela Carter (1997), as well as co-editing, with Francis Spufford, Cultural Babbage: Time, Technology and Invention (1997), a selection of essays by scientists and writers.

Radio, television and film

Uglow has taken part in many television and radio programmes, including presentingThe Poet of Albion, a BBC Radio 4 programme on William Blake, part of a series marking the 250th anniversary of the poet's birth; the programme emphasised Blake's radicalism.[22][23] In the past she acted as a historical consultant on several period dramas for the BBC, including Wives and Daughters (1999), Daniel Deronda (2002), He Knew He Was Right (2004), North and South (2004), Bleak House (2005) and Cranford (2007), as well as for the films Pride and Prejudice (2005) and Miss Potter (2006).[11][24]

Awards and honours

Awards and honours

  • 1993: Portico Prize,  Elizabeth Gaskell
  • 1995: Rose Mary Crawshay Prize, Elizabeth Gaskell
  • 2002 :  James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography, The Lunar Men
  • 2003: Hessell-Tiltman Prize for history, International PEN,  The Lunar Men
  • 2007: Marfield Prize, National Award for Arts writing, Nature’s Engraver
  • 2008: OBE for services to literature and publishing
  • 2008: Samuel Johnson Prize, shortlist, A Gambling Man
  • 2012: Benson Prize, Royal Society of Literature
  • 2013: Bill Rollinson Prize for Landscape and Tradition, The Pinecone
  • 2014: Duff Cooper Prize, shortlist, In These Times
  • 2015: Hessel-Tiltman Prize shortlist, In These Times
  • 2018: Hawthornden Prize, Mr Lear
  • 2018: Harvey Darton Award, Children’s Book Society, Mr Lear

Personal life

In 1971, Uglow married Steve Uglow, professor emeritus at the University of Kent; the couple have two sons and two daughters and eight grandchildren. For many years they lived in Canterbury and they now live in Borrowdale, Cumberland.[2]

Bibliography


Books

Biographies and studies

  •       Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography  (1982, 4th edition with Maggy Hendry, 2005)
  •       George Eliot
  •       Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories (1993)
  •       Henry Fielding (1995)
  •       Hogarth: A Life and a World (1997)
  •       Dr Johnson, His Club and Other Friends, National Portrait Gallery, (1998)
  •       The Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future (2002)
  •       Nature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick (2006)
  •       Words and Pictures: Writers, Artists and a Peculiarly British Tradition (2008)
  •       A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration(2010)
  •       The Pinecone: The Story of Sarah Losh, Forgotten Romantic Heroine—Antiquarian, Architect, and Visionary (2012)
  •       In These Times: Living in Britain through Napoleon's Wars, 1793-1815 (2014)
  •       Mr. Lear: A Life of Art and Nonsense (2017)
  •       Sybil & Cyril: Cutting Through Time (2021)
  •       The Quentin Blake Book (2022)
  •       A Year with Gilbert White: The First Great Nature Writer (2025)
  • Other nonfiction
  •      A Little History of British Gardening (2004, 2012
  • As editor
  •       Walter Pater: Essays on Literature and Art (1973)
  •       The Chatto Book of Ghosts (1994), reissued as The Vintage Book of Ghosts (1997)
  •       Cultural Babbage: Technology, Time and Invention (with Francis Spufford; 1996)
  •       Shaking a Leg: Collected Writings (by Angela Carter) (1997)

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "No. 58557". The London Gazette (Supplement). 29 December 2007. p. 12. (accessed 5 February 2008).
  2. ^ a b Uglow Family History: Uglows in Kent (accessed 19 August 2022).
  3. ^ The Benson Medal, Royal Society of Literature, retrieved 4 January 2017
  4. ^ University of Birmingham: Honours and Awards 2003 Archived 16 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine (accessed 5 February 2008).
  5. ^ University of Kent: Top comedian and actor to receive University of Kent Honorary Degree Archived 18 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine (accessed 5 February 2008).
  6. ^ Staffordshire University: Previous Honorary Awards Archived 31 January 2008 at the Wayback Machine (accessed 5 February 2008).
  7. ^ Birmingham City University: Faculty of Law, Humanities, Development and Society: University honour for author Jenny Uglow Archived 28 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine (accessed 5 February 2008).
  8. ^ a b c d RSA Lectures: Jenny Uglow Archived 14 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine (accessed 5 February 2008).
  9. ^ Spotlight: Guild members in print. The Slab 2005 Archived 12 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine (accessed 5 February 2008)
  10. ^ St Anne's College, University of Oxford: Distinguished alumnae Archived 18 April 2008 at the Wayback Machine (accessed 5 February 2008).
  11. ^ a b c Jenny Uglow website (accessed 5 February 2008).
  12. ^ Warwick University: English and Comparative Literary Studies: Permanent Academic Staff: Prof. J. Uglow (accessed 5 February 2008)
  13. ^ The Wordsworth Trust Trustees and Fellows Archived 7 April 2008 at the Wayback Machine (accessed 6 February 2008).
  14. ^ Searing SE. Biographical reference works for and about women, from the advent of the women's liberation movement to the present: an exploratory analysis. Library Trends (22 September 2007) (accessed 6 February 2008)
  15. ^ Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography:, 4th Edition (accessed 6 February 2008).
  16. ^ Uglow J. Friends reunited. The Guardian (30 April 2005) (accessed 7 February 2008).
  17. ^ Buchan, James (14 September 2002), "Reaching for the moon", Guardian (accessed 6 February 2008)
  18. ^ "The Quentin Blake Book". Thames & Hudson. Retrieved 8 February 2026.
  19. ^ A. S. Byatt "Take a leaf out of their books", The Guardian, 25 November 2006, accessed 8 February 2008.
  20. ^ Wood, Gaby (1 September 2002), "Fly me to the moon...", The Observer (accessed 7 February 2008).
  21. ^ Hoare, Philip. "Gilbert White's world of wonder". The Observer. Retrieved 8 February 2026.
  22. ^ BBC Radio 4: William Blake anniversary (accessed 5 February 2008).
  23. ^ Chisholm K. Radical prophet: The Poet of Albion (Radio Four). The Spectator (28 November 2007) (accessed 5 February 2008).
  24. ^ IMDb: Jenny Uglow (accessed 5 February 2008).
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