Peter Ackroyd

Peter Ackroyd CBE FRSL
Ackroyd in 2007
Born	(1949-10-05) 5 October 1949 (age 74) East Acton, London, England, United Kingdom
Occupation	Author, critic
Nationality	British
Alma mater	Clare College, Cambridge (BA)
Period	1976–present
Genre	Biography drama essays fiction literary criticism non-fiction poetry short stories
Subject	London and its inhabitants; English history and culture
Partner	Brian Kuhn (1980; died 1994)
Peter Ackroyd's voice from the BBC programme Desert Island Discs, 20 May 2012.[1]

Peter Ackroyd CBE, FRSL (born 5 October 1949) is an English biographer, novelist and critic with a specialist interest in the history and culture of London. 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. He is noted for the volume of work he has produced, the range of styles therein, his skill at assuming different voices, and the depth of his research.

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.