Anthony Holden

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Anthony Holden (born 22 May 1947) is a British journalist, broadcaster and writer, particularly known as a biographer of the British Royal family and of artists including Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky, Lorenzo da Ponte and Laurence Olivier.

He was born in Lancashire, and educated at Oundle School and the University of Oxford, where he edited the student paper Isis. He has written for a wide range of publications, and is currently music critic of The Observer.

He is one of the relatively few public critics of the J. K. Rowling Harry Potter books. When he was a Whitbread Prize judge in 2000 he was quoted as saying that it would have been a "national humiliation" if Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban had won, ahead of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf.

[edit] Poker

Holden is a keen poker player, and spent a year playing professionally while researching his 1990 book Big Deal. The book covers his experiences between the World Series of Poker (WSOP) tournaments in 1988 and 1989.

Holden has also announced a sequel to be titled Bigger Deal, anticipated to be published in 2007, which will cover his second stint as a professional player, between the 2005 and 2006 WSOP events.

In 2005 he appeared on the chat show Heads Up with Richard Herring, to discuss his life, career and his love of poker.

[edit] Works

Greek Pastoral Poetry (1973) translator
The St Albans Poisoner: The Life And Crimes Of Graham Young (1974)
Charles: Prince of Wales (1979) as Prince Charles (US)
Laurence Oliver: A Biography (1981)
Their Royal Highnesses, The Prince and Princess of Wales (1981)
A Week In The Life Of The Royal Family (1983)
Great Royal Front Pages: A Scrapbook of Historic Royal Events from Queen Victoria to Baby Prince William (1983)
Royal Quiz (1983)
Of Presidents, Prime Ministers And Princes (1984)
Queen Mother (1985)
Don Giovanni: The Translation (1987) with Amanda Holden
Charles: A Biography (1988) as King Charles III (US)
The Last Paragraph. The Journalism of David Blundy (1990) editor
Big Deal: A Year as a Professional Poker Player (1990)
The Queen Mother: A 90th Birthday Tribute (1990)
A Princely Marriage: Charles & Diana, the First Ten Years (1991)
Behind The Oscar: The Secret History of the Academy Awards (1993)
H.M. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother In Private (1993)
The Tarnished Crown (1993)
Tchaikovsky (1995)
Diana: Her Life and Legacy (1997)
Charles at Fifty (1998)
William Shakespeare: His Life and Work (1999)
Liber Amicorum for Frank Kermode (1999) editor with Ursula Owen
The Mind Has Mountains a.alvarez@lxx (1999) editor with Frank Kermode
The Drama of Love, Life and Death in Shakespeare (2000)
Shakespeare: An Illustrated Biography (2002)
Wit in the Dungeon (2005) biography of Leigh Hunt
Lorenzo Da Ponte, The Man Who Wrote Mozart (2006)