British Male Biographers

Essayist, biographer, lexicographer, and literary critic Samuel Johnson, or Dr. Johnson, is remembered for his A Dictionary of the English Language and Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets. He was also a poet, a playwright, and a staunch Tory. His mannerisms indicated he had Tourette syndrome.

George Lascelles, the 7th Earl of Harewood, was one of those British royalty members who gained more fame for their work than for their lineage. An art and music lover, he headed the English National Opera. An avid football fan, too, he was also the Leeds United president.

Better known as legendary author Oscar Wilde’s grandson, Merlin Holland is also a renowned biographer and journalist. His research on his grandfather has resulted in numerous collections such as The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde. He has also worked as a wine writer and a features writer.

English author and critic Peter Ackroyd is mostly known for his novels that depict the history of London. The Cambridge and Yale alumnus had initially worked at The Spectator. Apart from writing award-winning novels such as Hawksmoor, he has also penned biographies of T.S. Eliot and Dickens, among others.

One of the greatest statisticians of all time, Karl Pearson established the first university-level statistics department at UCL and also launched the statistics-oriented journal Biometrika. He was also well-versed in law and believed in eugenics. His The Grammar of Science later inspired Albert Einstein and other scientists.

One of the greatest biographers of the 17th century, Izaak Walton was also a lover of fishing and had penned one of the most detailed treatises on fishing, The Compleat Angler. His notable works also include his biographies on John Donne and Henry Wotton. He was also a staunch Royalist.

English biographer Lytton Strachey is best remembered for his masterpiece Eminent Victorians, which looks at the lives of Victorian figures such as Florence Nightingale and Thomas Arnold, using tools such as irony and paradox. He had also penned an award-winning biography of Queen Victoria. His short biographies discarded irrelevant details.

Part of the English football team that won the 1966 World Cup, George Cohen is a former football right-back who has played for Fulham for over a decade. He has also had a 14-year struggle with cancer, which he eventually won. He’s the uncle of English rugby player Ben Cohen.

Essayist Thomas De Quincey is best remembered for his iconic book Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, which initially appeared in the London Magazine. The work was an autobiographical account of his own addiction to opium, which he had begun consuming to help him deal with the pain of his facial neuralgia.

Though a qualified doctor, Samuel Smiles later never practiced and switched to journalism instead, working for Leeds Times. His best-known work remains Self-Help, a motivational self-improvement guide for the youth, which denounced materialism and advocated thrift. His other significant work was the 5-volume Lives of the Engineers.

Chiefly known as a novelist, biographer, and memoirist, Edward Frederic Benson began his career with the British School of Archaeology in Athens, publishing his first successful novel, Dodo: A Detail of the Day, during this period. Its popularity encouraged him to continue publishing, the most significant works among them being Mapp and Lucia series, and the biography of Queen Victoria.

Sir Leslie Stephen was an English historian, biographer, author, critic, and mountaineer. Leslie Stephen also took an active part in the organized humanist movement, serving as the president of the West London Ethical Society on multiple occasions. He was the father of famous author, Virginia Woolf, and painter, Vanessa Bell.

English Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, the first laureate to serve a fixed term, is best known for his narrative poetry and works such as The Pleasure Steamers. He has also penned biographies of John Keats and the Lambert family members. He has also been knighted for his achievements.

Historian Robert Lacey has soared to fame with his biographies such as Majesty, which chronicled the life of Queen Elizabeth II. He has also been a historical consultant for the Netflix series The Crown. He has penned the history of Saudi Arabia and has also stayed in Jeddah for a while.

Best known for The Irish Times column An Irishman's Diary, journalist Kevin Myers was accused of misogyny after his controversial comment that stated equal pay was to be “earned.” He has reported from places such as Africa, Central America, and India, and penned books such as Watching the Door.

Born to actor Robert Morley, Sheridan Morley was named after a character his father played. He started as a BBC broadcaster and then worked with Punch and The Spectator, as a drama critic. He had also penned biographies of personalities such as Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe.

Michael Holroyd is an English biographer whose two-volume work on the life of Lytton Strachey inspired the screenplay for the British biographical film Carrington. Over the course of his career, Holroyd has won several awards like the Heywood Hill Literary Prize, David Cohen Prize for literature, and Golden PEN Award. He was knighted in 2007 for services to English Literature.

Lord David Cecil was a British biographer, scholar, and historian. He also served as a professor, teaching at universities like the University of Oxford. While working at New College, Cecil taught Kingsley Amis and John Bayley, who would go on to become respected writers themselves. Cecil is also credited with mentoring personalities like R. K. Sinha and Bidhu Bhusan Das.

James Anthony Froude was an English novelist, biographer, and historian. He also contributed as an editor for Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country. Froude was often counted among the best-known historians of his time. A controversial personality, Froude's writings were often polemical which earned him many outspoken opponents.

Edward John Trelawny was a British biographer, novelist and adventurer. He is famous for his friendship with Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron. Handsome and dashing, he joined the Royal Navy at the age of thirteen, later writing about his experiences in Adventures of a Younger Son. His other well-known work is Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron.

The eldest son of Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Hartley Coleridge grew up spending most of his time reading and was closely associated with poets Robert Southey and William Wordworth. Though he gained a fellowship at Oriel, he later lost it due to his alcoholism and his inconsistency.

George Cavendish was an English writer best remembered for his biography of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. Apart from describing in detail Thomas Wolsey's life, his biography Thomas Wolsey, Late Cardinall, his Lyffe and Deathe also describes the political events of the 1520s and early sixteenth-century court life.

John Forster was an English critic and biographer who contributed to prominent publications like The Examiner, The Morning Chronicle, and The True Sun. He also contributed as an editor for the Foreign Quarterly Review and the Examiner. As he was a close friend of Charles Dickens, Forster's life is often covered extensively in the biographies of Charles Dickens.

Humphrey Carpenter was an English writer, biographer, and radio broadcaster whose work Charles Williams and their Friends won the 1978 Somerset Maugham Award. Carpenter was also a musician who played the piano, double-bass, and saxophone. In 1983, Humphrey Carpenter formed a band called Vile Bodies. He also founded a children's drama group called the Mushy Pea Theatre Group.

Initially a journalist, Peter Quennell had briefly taught in Japan, before going back to England and editing for The Cornhill Magazine. He also established the journal History Today. Knighted for his literary achievments, he was also known for his multiple biographies on Romantic poet Lord Byron.

Paul Bailey is a British novelist, biographer, and critic whose novel At The Jerusalem won an Arts Council Writers' Award as well as the prestigious Somerset Maugham Award. Over the years, he has also been an important contributor to The Guardian, a popular British daily newspaper.

Andrew Mango was a British author best remembered for his 1999 book on Kemal Atatürk, which earned him international fame. Mango is also remembered for his work at the BBC, where he spent his entire career. Born and brought up in Istanbul, Andrew Mango wrote a number of books on Turkey. 

Henry Francis Cary is best remembered for translating Dante’s Divine Comedy in blank verse. He had also penned several biographies of British and French authors. Educated at Oxford, he had also worked at the British Museum as an assistant librarian and was an Anglican clergy.