Stella Tillyard is a British author

British literature

British Literature refers to literature associated with the United Kingdom, Isle of Man and Channel Islands. By far the largest part of British literature is written in the English language, but there are bodies of written works in Latin, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Cornish, Manx, Jèrriais,...

 and historian born in 1957, best known for the best-selling Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832 which was made into a BBC Miniseries in 1999.

From academic to novelist

British-born Stella Tillyard read English literature at Oxford University

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 and then became a Knox Fellow at Harvard

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. She went on to teach English literature and art history at Harvard, and at UCLA

University of California, Los Angeles

The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

. Her PhD on 20th-century art criticism, completed in 1985, was published as The Impact of Modernism in 1987. From 1985-6 she attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She has taught at Harvard, UCLA, and the University of London

University of London

-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

. She lives in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, is married to the historian John Brewer, and has two children.

Her novel Times of War, set in the Regency period, appeared in May 2011. The author discussed in a magazine article the challenges of veracity faced by a writer of history and likewise of a historical novel: "No writer (including the professional historian) can ever really get beyond the envelope of self.... Are historians providing the master narratives of our times and historical novelists merely tinkering around the edges?"

List of works

The bibliographical information is taken from the online biography.

• The Impact of Modernism, 1900-20: Visual Arts in Edwardian England (1988) ISBN 978-0415002813
• Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa, and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832 (1995) ISBN 978-0374524470. Translations into Swedish, Dutch, Italian, Danish, French, Portuguese and German (1995-2000)
• Citizen Lord: Edward Fitzgerald, 1763-98 (1997) ISBN 978-0374525897. Translation into Swedish (2000)
• A Royal Affair: George III and His Scandalous Siblings (2006) ISBN 140006371X. Translation into Danish
• Tides of War. A novel of the Peninsula War (2011) ISBN 0701183179

Critical reception

Aristocrats was described as "compulsively readable" by The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

Book Review and "singular and remarkable" by The Washington Post

The Washington Post

The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

A Royal Affair was described by The New York Times as "scrupulously researched," but "looking at history sentimentally." The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

(London) called Tides of War "a remarkably instructive novel" by "a fluent and attractive chronicler of historical detail," but added that "the responsibility of entwining fact and fiction has had a slightly dampening effect on Tillyard's novel."
Other Reviewers:
· Sunday Telegraph, Jane Shilling, ‘Tillyard is a fluent and attractive chronicler of detail and some of her imaginative liberties are ingenious’
· Times, Angus Clarke: ‘hugely enjoyable… In its intelligent, classy, entertaining way, the book is reminiscent of that other fine novelist of the Napoleonic wars, Patrick O’Brian.’
· Woman & Home, Fanny Blake: ‘Love, betrayal, war and peace charge this powerful debut’
· FT, Amanda Foreman: ‘one of the most assured literary debuts in years… a modern novel that is the perfect answer to anyone who thinks the past is out of date.’
· Sunday Times, Lucy Atkins: ‘Tillyard writes in fluid, largely understated prose and her descriptions are wonderful’
Telegraph, Toby Clements: ‘a perfectly sprung novel of the sort that owes more to Hilary Mantel and David Mitchell than Patrick O’Brian or Bernard Cornwall’
· Saga, Kate Saunders, ‘This saga of lives swept up in the Peninsular War recalls Georgette Heyer at her best’…’impossible to put down’
· Independent, Matthew Dennison, ‘Tides of War is elegantly written, with passages of verve and … poignancy’
· Prima, ‘A thrilling romance brought to life with exquisite detail’views: