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Peter Ackroyd

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Peter Ackroyd

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English author (born 1949)

Person · Open Library

Born
5 October 1949
Works
165

Top works

  • Complete Works of William Shakespeare
  • Cities of blood
  • T. S. Ilyūṭ
  • Strangers to correction
  • The Canterbury Tales

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

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Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
215
Total plays
2,553

Peter Ackroyd (born October 5 1949, London) is an English author. Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London and one of his most recent works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages. In 1994 he was interviewed about the London Psychogeographical Association in an article for The Observer where he remarked: "I truly believe that there are certain people to whom or through whom the territory, the place, the past speaks.

via Last.fm · Peter Ackroyd

Quotes

  • The smell of the library was always the same – the musty odour of old clothes mixed with the keener scent of unwashed bodies, creating what the chief librarian had once described as "the steam of the social soup".
  • No poet is ever completely lost. He has the secret of his childhood safe with him, like some secret cave in which he can kneel. And, when we read his poetry, we can join him there.
  • London goes beyond any boundary or convention. It contains every wish or word ever spoken, every action or gesture ever made, every harsh or noble statement ever expressed. It is illimitable. It is Infinite London.
  • What captivity has been to the Jews, exile has been to the Irish. For us, the romance of our native land begins only after we have left home; it is really only with other people that we become Irishmen.
  • The English can laugh and at the same time strike you down, without the least compunction. It is the secret of their success as a nation.
  • He had the satisfied countenance of a man who has never succeeded in boring himself.

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Key facts

Born
( 1949-10-05 ) 5 October 1949 (age 76) , East Acton , London, England, United Kingdom
Occupation
Novelist, biographer, critic
Nationality
British
Alma mater
Clare College, Cambridge ( BA )
Period
1976–present
Genre
Biography drama essays fiction literary criticism non-fiction poetry short stories
Subject
London and its inhabitants; English history and culture
Partner
Brian Kuhn , (1980; died 1994)

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Wikidata facts

Image
Peter Ackroyd in 2007 (cropped).jpg
Show 3 more facts
date of birth
1949-10-05
name in native language
Peter Ackroyd
Commons category
Peter Ackroyd
Sources (7)

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Article

Peter Ackroyd CBE, FRSL (born 5 October 1949) is an English novelist, biographer and critic with a specialist interest in the history and culture of London. He is noted for his "technically innovative novels", the volume of work he has produced, the range of styles therein, his skill at assuming different voices, and the depth of his research.

For his novels about English history and culture and his biographies of, among others, William Blake, Charles Dickens, T. S. Eliot, Charlie Chaplin and Sir Thomas More, Ackroyd won the Somerset Maugham Award and two Whitbread Awards.

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