Richard Holmes

Richard Holmes is best known for his biographical studies of major figures of British and French Romanticism. Coleridge: Early Visions (1989), the first of a two-part biography, was Whitbread Book of the Year. Coleridge: Darker Reflections (1998) won the Duff Cooper Prize and the Heinemann Award. His books include Shelley: The Pursuit (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award in 1972), Dr Johnson and Mr Savage (winner of the James Tait Black Prize in 1993) and The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science (2008). He is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature and a Fellow of the British Academy. He was professor of Biographical Studies at the University of East Anglia (2001–2007) and has honorary doctorates from UEA, University of East London, University of Kingston and the Tavistock Institute. In 1992 he was awarded the OBE. He lives in London and Norfolk with his wife, the novelist Rose Tremain.