About Peter Ackroyd
Peter Ackroyd (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. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2003. Eliot, Charlie Chaplin and Sir Thomas More, he won the Somerset Maugham Award and two Whitbread Awards. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel, which is a reworking of Charles Dickens' novel Little Dorrit. 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, he won the Somerset Maugham Award and two Whitbread Awards.
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