Claire Harman
Biographer, critic, emeritus Professor. Books on Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, Fanny Burney, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Katherine Mansfield. Also Murder by the Book, a Victorian literary true-crime.
www.claireharman.com
- Some powerfully resonant quotes from 'Salvation by Words' near the end of @backlisted.bsky.social on Iris Murdoch: 'Tyrants always fear art because tyrants want to mystify while art tends to clarify. The good artist is a vehicle of truth' @irismurdoch.bsky.social www.backlisted.fm/episodes/256...
- '....The good artist is a vehicle of truth, he formulates ideas which would otherwise remain vague and focuses attention upon facts which can then no longer be ignored. The tyrant persecutes the artist by silencing him or by attempting to degrade or buy him. This has always been so.'
- This is happening tomorrow! www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
- One of the last stories - possibly the very last? - from the pen of Sylvia Townsend Warner, written in 1977, published this week in @thetls.bsky.social: www.the-tls.com/literature-b...
- Happy Birthday Sylvia Townsend Warner, born 6 December 1893. Here she is, reciting her poem Gloriana Dying, recorded in Frome Vauchurch in February 1978 by Fraser Steel and Michael Schmidt, two months before her death: poetryarchive.org/explore/?key...
- Brontë fans and others might enjoy this free online event organised by the wonderful Toronto Public Library Book Club, a midwinter gothic treat in honour of the masterpiece Jane Eyre. Friday 19 December - book now: www.eventbrite.ca/e/classics-o...
- 1/12 Jane Austen breaks her silence in celebrity interview! A thread in celebration of #JaneAusten250 Questions posed by The Age: answers from Jane Austen (as told to Claire Harman), illustration by Chris Riddell, from cover of the audiobook, Jane's Fame.
- 27 October 2025 - To celebrate Jane Austen's 250th anniversary, Jane's Fame, the landmark study of Austen's authorship and reputation history, is now available as an audiobook, read by the author. Available on Spotify, Apple Books, BookBeat, Kobo, Everand & more.
- 'What can you make of a person so determined from the start to hold a stand-off with posterity?' - my review of The Letters of Muriel Spark in the September issue of Literary Review: literaryreview.co.uk/fighting-wor...
- Another chance to hear Katie Hims's enchanting 'And Other Stories: Katherine Mansfield', featuring Hattie Morahan as KM, broadcast on R4 this afternoon: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
- 'Thought followed thought - star followed star Through boundless regions on, While one sweet influence, near and far, Thrilled through and proved us one' Happy Birthday, Emily Brontë, genius poet, born 30 July 1818
- 'A young woman made of highly flammable material' - my review of The Letters of Emily Dickinson, for Literary Review: literaryreview.co.uk/postmark-amh...
Congratulations to Jeff Young, winner of this year’s TLS Ackerley Prize for his highly original and exhilaratingly written memoir ‘Wild Twin’, published by @littletollerbooks.bsky.social
- 'We think she's a moralist, but surely she's far too worldly for that. The degree to which she might be misunderstood is already calculated by the author, and allowed for.' The Real Jane Austen, from 2011: www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/notting-hill...
- 'Austen’s chameleon quality makes her eminently safe for mass consumption; a life companion, or, if you’re seeking one, life coach'. My review of Janet Todd's Living with Jane Austen, in this week's @thetls.bsky.social www.the-tls.co.uk/literature-b...
- I'm delighted to be taking part in this Bronte event at fabulous Seamus Heaney Homeplace, in just two weeks' time.
- On Deborah Levy's 'intellectually flirty' collection of essays, for this week's TLS: www.the-tls.co.uk/regular-feat...
- 'I, so wary of traps, So skilful to outwit Springes and pitfalls set Am caught now, perhaps' Sylvia Townsend Warner asleep with Thomas the cat, caught by her lover Valentine Ackland. From 'The True Voice of the Heart', now online at journals.uclpress.co.uk/stw/article/...
- 'The hidden treasure within this story is the powerful, barely expressed knowledge of each other that both the Misses Austen took to their graves'; my Literary Review piece on Gill Hornby's 'Miss Austen', premiering tonight on BBC 1. literaryreview.co.uk/sense-sister...
