Adam Nicolson

Adam Nicolson, 5th Baron Carnock, FRSL, FSA (born 12 September 1957) is an English author who has written about history, landscape, great literature and the sea.

He is noted for his books Sea Room (about the Shiant Isles, a group of uninhabited islands in the Hebrides); God's Secretaries: the making of the King James Bible; The Mighty Dead (US title:Why Homer Matters) exploring the epic Greek poems; and The Seabird's Cry about the disaster afflicting the world's seabirds.

Biography

Adam Nicolson is the son of writer Nigel Nicolson and his wife Philippa Tennyson-d'Eyncourt. He is the grandson of the writers Vita Sackville-West and Sir Harold Nicolson, and great-grandson of Sir Eustace Tennyson d'Eyncourt and Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock. He was educated at Summer Fields School,^[1] Eton College where he was a King's Scholar, and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He has worked as a journalist and columnist on the Sunday Times, the Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Telegraph and writes regularly for National Geographic Magazine and Granta, where he is a contributing editor. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Society of Antiquaries and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

He has made several television series (with Keo Films) and radio series (with Tim Dee, the writer and radio producer) on subjects as diverse as the King James Bible, 17th-century literacy, Crete, Homer, the idea of Arcadia, the untold story of Britain's 20th-century whalers and the future of Atlantic seabirds.

Nicolson has three sons, Thomas (born in 1984), William (born 1986) and Ben (born 1988), from his first marriage to Olivia Fane.^[2] Since 1992 Nicolson has been married to Sarah Raven. They have two daughters, Rosie (born 1993) and Molly (born 1996) and live at Perch Hill Farm^[3] in Sussex.

Between 2005 and 2009, in partnership with the National Trust, Nicolson led a project which transformed the 260 acres (110 ha) surrounding the house and garden at Sissinghurst into a productive mixed farm, growing meat, fruit, cereals and vegetables for the National Trust restaurant.^[4]

In December 2008 he succeeded his cousin David Nicolson, 4th Baron Carnock as 5th Baron Carnock but he does not use the title.^[5]

Awards and recognition

• 1986 Somerset Maugham Award Frontiers
• 1987 PBFA Topography Prize Wetland (with Patrick Sutherland)
• 1997 British Press Awards Feature Writer of the Year (shortlist)
• 1998 British Book Awards Illustrated Book of the Year (shortlist) Restoration
• 2002 Duff Cooper Prize (shortlist) Sea Room
• 2004 Royal Society of Literature Heinemann Award Power and Glory
• 2005 Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
• 2006 Royal United Services Institute Duke of Westminster's Medal for Military Literature (shortlist) Men of Honour
• 2009 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize Sissinghurst: an Unfinished History
• 2009 Samuel Johnson Prize (longlist) Sissinghurst: an Unfinished History
• 2010 Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
• 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize (longlist) The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters
• 2014 Scottish BAFTA (winner, Factual Series) Britain's Whale Hunters
• 2015 London Hellenic Prize (shortlist) The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters

Books

• The National Trust Book of Long Walks (1981)
• Long Walks in France (1983)
• Frontiers (1985)
• Wetland (1987)
• Two Roads to Dodge City (1988) with Nigel Nicolson
• Prospects of England (1990)
• Restoration: Rebuilding of Windsor Castle (1997)
• Regeneration: The Story of the Dome (1999)
• Perch Hill: A New Life (2000)
• Mrs Kipling: The Hated Wife (2001)
• Sea Room (2001)
• Power and Glory: the Making of the King James Bible (US edition title: God's Secretaries) (2003) (reissued in 2011 as When God Spoke English)
• Seamanship (2004)
• Men of Honour: Trafalgar and the Making of the English Hero (US edition title: Seize the Fire: Heroism, Duty, and the Battle of Trafalgar) (2005)
• Earls of Paradise (US edition title: Quarrel with the King) (2008)
• Sissinghurst: An Unfinished History (2008/US revised edition 2010)
• Arcadia: The Dream of Perfection in Renaissance England (a revised paperback edition of Earls of Paradise) (2009)
• The Smell of Summer Grass (an updated edition of Perch Hill) (2011)
• The Gentry: Stories of the English (2011)
• The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters (US edition title: Why Homer Matters) (2014)
• The Seabird's Cry: The Life and Loves of Puffins, Gannets and Other Ocean Voyagers (2017)

Television

• Atlantic Britain Channel 4, 2004
• Sissinghurst BBC 4, 2009
• When God Spoke English: The Making of the King James Bible BBC 4, 2011
• The Century That Wrote Itself BBC 4, 2013
• Britain's Whale Hunters BBC 4, 2014
• The Last Seabird Summer? BBC 4, 2016

Radio

• Homer’s Landscapes 3 x 45 mins, BBC Radio 3, 2008
• A Cretan Spring 5 x 15 mins, with Sarah Raven, BBC Radio 3, 2009
• Dark Arcadias 2 x 45 mins, BBC Radio 3, 2011

References

External links

• Author page at Harper Collins