Richard Hamblyn

Richard Hamblyn (born 1965) is a British environmental writer and historian. He is a lecturer in the Department of English, Theatre and Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, and has contributed articles and reviews to the Sunday Times, The Guardian, the Independent, the Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books.

His books include The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies (2001), an account of the life and work of Luke Howard which won a 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was shortlisted for the 2002 Samuel Johnson Prize; Terra: Tales of the Earth (2009), a study of natural disasters, a BBC Wales Science Book of the Year; and an anthology of science writing, The Art of Science: a Natural History of Ideas (2011). He has also written four illustrated books on weather in association with the UK Met Office, including The Cloud Book (2008); Extraordinary Clouds (2009); and Extraordinary Weather (2012), and edited Daniel Defoe's first book, The Storm (1704) for Penguin Classics (2005). Works written in collaboration with the British landscape photographer Jem Southam include Clouds Descending (2009) and The River in Winter (2012).

In the academic year 2008–09 Hamblyn was writer-in-residence at the University College London Environment Institute, and produced the book Data Soliloquies (Slade, 2009) with Martin John Callanan who was artist-in-residence for the same year.

Publications Books by Richard Hamblyn The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies (Picador, 2001 ). Terra: Tales of the Earth (Picador, 2009 ) "How Much Are They Paying You?", The Mechanics' Institute Review: The Climate Issue, 16 (Autumn 2019) "Where There Are Waves There Are Stories", The Passenger: Oceano (Iperborea, 2022) "Behold.... The Sea!", in BBC Proms Guide 2022 (BBC Publications, 2022) "Luke Howard, Namer of Clouds", Weather, 77:11 (November 2022) The Cloud Deck (David & Charles, 2026)