Charles Nicholl is an English author specializing in works of history, biography, literary detection, and travel. He has been active as a writer since the 1970s and has been publishing books since 1980. His subjects have included

Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe ( ; Baptism, baptised 26 February 156430 May 1593), also known as Kit Marlowe, was an English playwright, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the English Renaissance theatre, Eli ...

Arthur Rimbaud Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he s ...

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...

Thomas Nashe Thomas Nashe (also Nash; baptised 30 November 1567 – c. 1601) was an English Elizabethan playwright, poet, satirist and a significant pamphleteer. He is known for his novel '' The Unfortunate Traveller'', his pamphlets including '' Pierce P ...

and

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

. He is a fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 800 Fellows, elect ...

. Nicholl was educated at

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

. In 1972, early in his career, he won the ''Daily Telegraph's "Young Writer Award", which gave him tickets to the Caribbean, as a result of which he visited

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

. Since his early work he has shown an interest in

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Ho ...

. In 1974 he was the winner of the ''

Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'' "Young Writer Award" for his account of an

LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly known as LSD (from German ; often referred to as acid or lucy), is a semisynthetic, hallucinogenic compound derived from ergot, known for its powerful psychological effects and serotonergic activity. I ...

"trip" (psychological reaction to a

hallucinogen Hallucinogens, also known as psychedelics, entheogens, or historically as psychotomimetics, are a large and diverse class of psychoactive drugs that can produce altered states of consciousness characterized by major alterations in thought, mo ...

) entitled 'The Ups and The Downs'. He has since written about such topics as the drug trade (for example in ''The Fruit Palace'') and the Elizabethan underworld (for example in ''The Reckoning''). Besides his literary output, Nicholl has also presented documentary programmes on television. He has lectured in Britain, Italy and the United States. He also lectures on Martin Randall Travel tours.Martin Randall Travel, Expert Lecturers
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Personal life

In the 1990s he moved to Italy, living near

Lucca Città di Lucca ( ; ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. The city has a population of about 89,000, while its Province of Lucca, province has a population of 383,9 ...

with his wife and children. Boyd Tonkin (November 2007)
Charles Nicholl: Low life, high art
'' The Independent''

Selected works

* ''A Cup of News'' (1984) – a biography of

* ''The Fruit Palace'' (1985) * ''Borderlines'' (1988) * ''The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe'' (1992, revised edition 2002) winner of the

James Tait Black Memorial Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Un ...

for biography and the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction) ** ''The Reckoning'' has also been adapted as a

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

drama-documentary. * ''Somebody Else: Arthur Rimbaud in Africa'' (1998 winner of the

Hawthornden Prize The Hawthornden Prize is a British literary award given annually to a British, Irish or British-based author for a work of "imaginative literature" – including poetry, novels, history, biography and creative non-fiction – published in the pre ...

) * '' Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind'' (2004) * ''The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street'' (2007); published in the USA as ''The Lodger Shakespeare His Life On Silver Street'' * ''Traces Remain'' (2012).

References

1950 births English historians English biographers Shakespearean scholars Alumni of King's College, Cambridge English expatriates in Italy Living people James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature {{UK-writer-stub