Claire Harman (writer)

Claire Harman

FRSL
OccupationWriter and biographer
Period1989–present
SubjectLiterary biography, short fiction, poetry
Notable worksFanny Burney; Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World; Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything
Notable awardsJohn Lllewyn Rhys Prize; Forward Prize; Tom Gallon Award
Website
www.claireharman.com

Claire Harman is a British literary critic and book reviewer who has written for the Times Literary Supplement, Literary Review, Evening Standard, the Sunday Telegraph and other publications.[1] Harman is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has taught English at the Universities of Oxford and Manchester. She has taught creative writing at Columbia University,[2] and been Professor of Creative Writing at Durham University since 2016.[3]

Harman won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1989 for her biography of poet Sylvia Townsend Warner.[4] This was followed with eponymous biographies of Fanny Burney[5] in 2000 and Robert Louis Stevenson in 2005.[6] In 2009, Harman published Jane's Fame, a book about the posthumous fame of novelist Jane Austen.

In 2015, Harman published what the Guardian called an 'eminently sensible'[7] biography of Charlotte Bronte.[8] In the same year, she won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem of the year for "The Mighty Hudson", first published in the Times Literary Supplement.[9] In 2016, Harman won the ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award for a short story.[10] This was followed by Murder by the Book; A Sensational Chapter in Victorian Crime[11] in 2018.

Harman returned to literary biography with the 'innovative' [12]All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything[13] in 2023.

Harman was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2006. She is a judge of the J.R. Ackerley Prize.

Bibliography

Biographies

Criticism

Other non-fiction

  • 2019 — Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens's London, Knopf

References

  1. ^ "Claire Harman - Archive". Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  2. ^ "Fall 2005 Courses". Columbia University. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  3. ^ University, Durham. "Professor Claire Harman - Durham University". www.durham.ac.uk. Retrieved 15 January 2024.
  4. ^ "Previous winners of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize". Booktrust. Archived from the original on 1 April 2012. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  5. ^ Harman, Claire (20 September 2012). Fanny Burney: A biography (Text Only). HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 978-0-00-739189-9.
  6. ^ Harman, Claire (27 September 2012). Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography (Text Only ed.). HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 978-0-00-739259-9.
  7. ^ Hughes, Kathryn (31 October 2015). "Charlotte Brontë: A Life by Claire Harman review – a well-balanced, unshowy biography". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 15 January 2024.
  8. ^ Harman, Claire (29 October 2015). Charlotte Brontë: A Life. Penguin Books Limited. ISBN 978-0-241-96368-5.
  9. ^ "The Forward Prizes for Poetry – the Poetry Society".
  10. ^ "ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award - The Society of Authors". 8 May 2020. Retrieved 15 January 2024.
  11. ^ Harman, Claire (4 February 2020). Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens's London. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-525-43615-7.
  12. ^ Seymour, Miranda (15 January 2024). "All Sorts of Lives by Claire Harman review — a life of Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf's great rival". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 15 January 2024.
  13. ^ Harman, Claire (5 January 2023). All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the art of risking everything. Random House. ISBN 978-1-5291-9167-7.