Jenny Uglow

Jennifer Sheila Uglow (, born 1947) is an English biographer, historian, critic and publisher, and a former editorial director of Chatto & Windus. She has written critically-acclaimed biographies of Elizabeth Gaskell, William Hogarth, Thomas Bewick, Edward Lear and Gilbert White, as well as a group biography of the Lunar Society and a panoramic account of living in Britain through the Napoleonic wars.

Among various prizes and awards, she has won the 2002 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 2003 Hessell-Tiltman Prize for The Lunar Men: The Friends who Made the Future 1730–1810, and the 2018 Hawthornden Prize for Mr Lear: A Life of Art and Nonsense. She has also chaired the Council of the Royal Society of Literature, and was awarded the society's Benson Medal in 2012. She has honorary degrees and in 2008, she was awarded the OBE for services to literature and publishing. She attended Cheltenham Ladies' College (1958–64) and St Anne's College, University of Oxford. After gaining a first in English, she took a BLitt.

She has been an honorary visiting professor at the University of Warwick, and for many years acted as a trustee of the Wordsworth Trust. She was formerly a member of the British Library's Advisory Group for the Humanities. though later versions involved other editors. Uglow later wrote:

Her first full-length biographies, depicting the Victorian women writers George Eliot (1987) and Elizabeth 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 author Henry Fielding (1995), and artists William Hogarth (1997), Thomas Bewick (2006) and Edward Lear. The scientists and engineers of the Lunar Society, including Erasmus Darwin, Matthew Boulton, James Watt, Joseph Priestley and Josiah Wedgwood, are the subject of her prize-winning work The Lunar Men (2003). The Pinecone: A Life of Sarah Losh (2012), tells the story of a pioneering Victorian woman architect, while InThese Times (2014) is a large-scale group biography exploring the home front during the Napoleonic wars. Her latest book A 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 includes Sybil and Cyril ( 2021), a joint biography of the 1930s lino-cut artists Sybil Andrews and Cyril Power, and The Quentin Blake Book (2022), which was written to mark the artist’s 90th birthday.

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" writes A. S. Byatt of Nature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick, and a review of The Lunar Men in The Observer claims "never has the eighteenth century come so much to life." Her book on Gilbert White was described in The Observer as ”A glorious celebration of curiosity and nature.”

Other writing and editing Uglow's non-biographical writing includes a history of gardening in Britain, written for the bicentenary of the Royal Horticultural Society in 2004, which Uglow describes as a "labour of love". In the past she acted as a historical consultant on several period dramas for the BBC, including Wives and Daughters (1999), Daniel Deronda (2002), He Knew He Was Right (2004), North and South (2004), Bleak House (2005) and Cranford (2007), as well as for the films Pride and Prejudice (2005) and Miss Potter (2006).

Awards and honours Awards and honours

1993: Portico Prize, Elizabeth Gaskell 1995: Rose Mary Crawshay Prize, Elizabeth Gaskell 2002 : James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography, The Lunar Men 2003: Hessell-Tiltman Prize for history, International PEN, The Lunar Men 2007: Marfield Prize, National Award for Arts writing, Nature’s Engraver 2008: OBE for services to literature and publishing 2008: Samuel Johnson Prize, shortlist, A Gambling Man 2012: Benson Prize, Royal Society of Literature 2013: Bill Rollinson Prize for Landscape and Tradition, The Pinecone 2014: Duff Cooper Prize, shortlist, In These Times 2015: Hessel-Tiltman Prize shortlist, In These Times 2018: Hawthornden Prize, Mr Lear 2018: Harvey Darton Award, Children’s Book Society, Mr Lear

Personal life In 1971, Uglow married Steve Uglow, professor emeritus at the University 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.