Jenny Uglow | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1947 (age 78–79) |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Subject | Arts |
| Notable awards | James Tait Black Memorial Prize Hessell-Tiltman Prize Marfield Prize |
| Spouse | Steve Uglow, m. 1971 |
| Children | 4 |
Jennifer Sheila Uglow (née Crowther,[1][2] born 1947) is an English biographer, historian, critic and publisher, and a former editorial director ofChatto & Windus. She has written critically acclaimed biographies ofElizabeth Gaskell,William Hogarth,Thomas Bewick,Edward Lear, and Gilbert White, as well as a group biography of theLunar Society and a panoramic account of living in Britain through the Napoleonic wars.
Among various prizes and awards, she has won the 2002James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 2003Hessell-Tiltman Prize forThe Lunar Men: The Friends who Made the Future 1730–1810, and the 2018 Hawthornden Prize forMr Lear: A Life of Art and Nonsense. She has also chaired the Council of theRoyal Society of Literature, and was awarded the society'sBenson Medal in 2012.[3] She has honorary degrees[4][5][6][7] and in 2008, she was awarded theOBE for services to literature and publishing.[1]
Uglow was brought up inCumbria and laterDorset.[8] She attendedCheltenham Ladies' College (1958–64) andSt Anne's College,University of Oxford.[9][10] After gaining a first in English, she took a BLitt.[8]
After leaving university, Uglow worked in publishing and until 2013 was an editorial director of the publishing companyChatto & Windus, an imprint ofRandom House.[8][11]
She has been an honorary visiting professor at theUniversity of Warwick,[12] and for many years acted as a trustee of theWordsworth Trust.[13] She was formerly a member of theBritish Library's Advisory Group for the Humanities.[8] A fellow of theRoyal 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.
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 theMacmillan 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 writersGeorge Eliot (1987) andElizabeth 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 authorHenry Fielding (1995), and artistsWilliam Hogarth (1997),Thomas Bewick (2006) and Edward Lear. The scientists and engineers of theLunar Society, includingErasmus Darwin,Matthew Boulton,James Watt,Joseph Priestley andJosiah Wedgwood, are the subject of her prize-winning workThe Lunar Men (2003).[17]The Pinecone: A Life of Sarah Losh (2012), tells the story of a pioneering Victorian woman architect, whileInThese Times (2014) is a large-scale group biography exploring the home front during the Napoleonic wars. Her latest bookA 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 includesSybil and Cyril ( 2021), a joint biography of the 1930s lino-cut artists Sybil Andrews and Cyril Power, andThe 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" writesA. S. Byatt ofNature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick,[19] and a review ofThe Lunar Men inThe Observer claims "never has the eighteenth century come so much to life."[20] Her book on Gilbert White was described inThe Observer as ”A glorious celebration of curiosity and nature.”[21]
Uglow's non-biographical writing includes a history of gardening in Britain, written for the bicentenary of theRoyal Horticultural Society in 2004, which Uglow describes as a "labour of love".[11]
She has also edited collections of writings byWalter Pater (1973) andAngela 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.
Uglow has taken part in many television and radio programmes, including presentingThe Poet of Albion, aBBC Radio 4 programme onWilliam 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 theBBC, includingWives and Daughters (1999),Daniel Deronda (2002),He Knew He Was Right (2004),North and South (2004),Bleak House (2005) andCranford (2007), as well as for the filmsPride and Prejudice (2005) andMiss Potter (2006).[11][24]
Awards and honours
In 1971, Uglow married Steve Uglow, professor emeritus at theUniversity 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]
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