Claire Tomalin (née Delavenay; born 20 June 1933) is an English journalist and biographer known for her biographies of Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Samuel Pepys, Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft.
Early life
Tomalin was born Claire Delavenay on 20 June 1933 in London, the daughter of English composer Muriel Herbert and French academic Émile Delavenay.
Education
Tomalin was educated at Hitchin Girls' Grammar School, a former state grammar school in Hitchin in Hertfordshire, at Dartington Hall School, She has served on the committee of the London Library, and as a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery and the Wordsworth Trust. She is a vice-president of the Royal Literary Fund, the Royal Society of Literature and of English PEN. She is also a member of the American Philosophical Society.
Personal life
Tomalin married her first husband, fellow Cambridge graduate Nicholas Tomalin, a journalist, in 1955, and they had three daughters and two sons. He was killed while reporting on the Yom Kippur War in 1973. She worked in publishing and journalism as literary editor of the New Statesman, then The Sunday Times, while bringing up her children. They live in Petersham, London.
Awards and honours
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (1976)
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize, The Invisible Woman (1990)
- Hawthornden Prize, The Invisible Woman (1991)
- Whitbread Book Award, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self (2002)
- Rose Mary Crawshay Prize, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self (2003)
- Samuel Pepys Award of the Samuel Pepys Club, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self (2003)
- Samuel Johnson Prize, shortlist, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self (2003)
- Honorary Member Magdalene College, Cambridge (2003)
- Honorary Fellow Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge (2003), Newnham College; Cambridge (2004)
- Honorary D.Litt: UEA (2005); Birmingham (2005); Greenwich (2006); Cambridge (2007); Goldsmith (2009); Open University (2008); Roehampton (2011); Portsmouth (2012)