Charles Nicholl is an award-winning English author specializing in works of history, biography, literary detection, and travel. His subjects have included Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...

, Arthur Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud

Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...

, Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

, Thomas Nashe

Thomas Nashe

Thomas Nashe was an English Elizabethan pamphleteer, playwright, poet and satirist. He was the son of the minister William Nashe and his wife Margaret .-Early life:...

, and most recently William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

. Besides his literary output, Nicholl has also presented documentary programs on television. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature

Royal Society of Literature

The Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...

 and has lectured in Britain, Italy and the United States.

He was educated at King's College, Cambridge

King's College, Cambridge

King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

.

Nicholl lives in Italy with his wife and children.

Selected works

• The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe (1992 winner of the James Tait Black Prize for biography and the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction
  CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction
  The CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction is a British literary award established in 1978 by the Crime Writers' Association, who have awarded the Gold Dagger fiction award since 1955....
  
  )
• Somebody Else: Arthur Rimbaud in Africa (1998 winner of the Hawthornden Prize
  Hawthornden Prize
  The Hawthornden Prize is a British literary award that was established in 1919 by Alice Warrender. Authors are awarded on the quality of their "imaginative literature" which can be written in either poetry or prose...
  
  )
• Leonardo Da Vinci: Flights of the Mind
  Leonardo Da Vinci: Flights of the Mind
  Leonardo Da Vinci: Flights of the Mind is a biography of Leonardo da Vinci by Charles Nicholl.-Release details:*2004, United States of America, Viking Adult ISBN 0-670-03345-6, Pub date 18 November 2004, Hardcover...
  
  
• The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street