Richard Davenport-Hines won the Wolfson Prize for History for his first book, ‘Dudley Docker’. He is an adviser to the ‘Oxford Dictionary of National Biography’ and has also written biographies of W.H. Auden and Marcel Proust. His most recent book, ‘Titanic Lives’ was published in 2012. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Literature, he reviews for the Sunday Telegraph, the Sunday Times and the Times Literary Supplement.
A full-time church minister, Richard has authored several books with Collins. Most recently he wrote the God’s little book of… collection
As a Samaritan Volunteer, Richard particularly enjoys focusing on the ministry of encouragement and reconciliation, reaching out to those in need. Richard has led a number of tours to the Holy Land and Egypt and naturally enjoys travelling. He also served as a Chaplain in the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
A full-time church minister, Richard has authored several books with Collins. Most recently he wrote the God’s little book of… collection
As a Samaritan Volunteer, Richard particularly enjoys focusing on the ministry of encouragement and reconciliation, reaching out to those in need. Richard has led a number of tours to the Holy Land and Egypt and naturally enjoys travelling. He also served as a Chaplain in the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) was a Scottish writer and physician, most famous for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes and long-suffering sidekick Dr Watson. Conan Doyle was a prolific writer whose other works include fantasy and science fiction stories, plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction and historical novels.
Suzannah Dunn is the author of eight previous books of fiction: Darker Days Than Usual, Blood Sugar, Past Caring, Quite Contrary, Venus Flaring, Tenterhooks, Commencing Our Descent and most recently Queen of Subtleties. She lives in Shropshire.
John Donne was born in 1572 and, a Roman Catholic in his youth, took Anglican Orders in 1615 and was Dean of St. Paul’s from 1621 until his death.
His poetry, though forgotten for a long period, is the finest example of the so-called ‘metaphysical’ style, learned, allusive and witty. It is both highly physical and highly spiritual, with no distinction in method between the sacred and secular poems.
Charles Dickens was born in 1812 and grew up in poverty. This experience influenced ‘Oliver Twist’, the second of his fourteen major novels, which first appeared in 1837. When he died in 1870, he was buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey as an indication of his huge popularity as a novelist, which endures to this day.
Described by the Sunday Times as ‘one of our best biographers’, Jane Dunn writes about women and their relationships, and sisters in particular. Her books include a biography of the sisters Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell and the bestseller Elizabeth & Mary, which looks at the lives of the cousin queens Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in Bath with her husband the writer and linguist, Nicholas Ostler.
Matthew Dennison is the author of seven critically acclaimed works of non-fiction, including Behind the Mask: The Life of Vita Sackville-West, a Book of the Year in The Times, Spectator, Independent and Observer. His most recent book is Over the Hills and Far Away: The Life of Beatrix Potter. He is a contributor to Country Life and Telegraph.
Daniel Defoe was born at the beginning of a period of history known as the English Restoration, so-named because it was when King Charles II restored the monarchy to England following the English Civil War and the brief dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell. Defoe’s contemporaries included Isaac Newton and Samuel Pepys.
