Great Britain, biography book series in reading order

by James Herriot

Ranulph Fiennes

33 books

Ranulph Fiennes writes out of a life of expeditions. Born in 1944, Fiennes served eight years in the British Army, including counter-insurgency work attached to the Army of the Sultanate of Oman, then became the first person to reach both Poles by surface travel and the first to cross Antarctica on foot, and stood on the summit of Everest in 2009 at the age of 65. The catalogue lists 33 books dated 1970 to 2023, at a median of 329 pages, from A Talent For Trouble through To the Ends of the Earth (1983) and Atlantis of the Sands (1992) to Lawrence of Arabia (2023). Travel, exploration and biography are the standing subjects.

Who HQ is the credit on 429 children's nonfiction biographies in the catalogue, published from 2002 to 2026. The run opens with Who Was Albert Einstein?, Who Was Amelia Earhart? and Who Was Ben Franklin? (all 2002) and reaches Who Is Vera Wang (2026). Subjects include biography, history and juvenile nonfiction for readers aged 8 to 12. Other names credited on some of the books include Megan Stine (7), John Hinderliter (7) and Nico Medina (4).

James Herriot wrote about veterinary practice in the English countryside, mixing memoir, anecdote and animal stories. The catalogue holds 39 titles published between 1970 and 2023, among them All Creatures Great and Small (1972), All Things Bright and Beautiful (1974) and the 2023 collection The Wonderful World of James Herriot. All Creatures Great and Small is the best known sequence, and Herriot also wrote children's books such as Bonny's Big Day. The books are short at a median of 180 pages, and the catalogue is closed.

Cathy Glass writes accounts of fostering. Damaged and Hidden both appeared in 2007, and 54 titles are catalogued through Helpless: Part 3 (2024). Foster children, foster mothers, abused children and therapeutic foster care fill the subject tags, with the books filed under biography and British social conditions. Non-fiction, novels and short works all sit on the list.

Foster care accounts for the whole of Casey Watson's catalogue: 31 books published between 2011 and 2023, drawn from therapeutic fostering in Great Britain. The run opens with The Boy No One Loved (2011) and ends with I Want My Daddy (2023). Subject headings cover foster children, abused children, foster mothers and biography. Short stories and novellas sit alongside the full-length titles. Nothing new has appeared since 2023, and the catalogue is dormant.

Wensley Clarkson is an English true crime writer, biographer and television producer, born in 1956. The catalogue holds 74 books dated 1991 to 2021, from Dog eat dog (1991) to Serial Killers of Russia (2021). Murderers, organised crime, serial murder and female offenders are the standing subjects, with case studies of British crime running through the list. Clarkson also published a biography of Quentin Tarantino in 1995. Books average 288 pages, and the 2000s were the peak decade.

Hugo Vickers, born on 12 November 1951, is an English biographer and broadcaster who writes about the British royal family. Vickers's 22 catalogued books open with We want the Queen (1977) and include Vivien Leigh (1992), Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece (2000) and Elizabeth, The Queen Mother (2005). Other titles cover the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and a royal wedding. Queen Elizabeth II: A Personal History (2026) is the newest title.

Alison Weir is a British historian and author who writes about English royalty, and about royal women in particular. Weir's first book, Britain's Royal Families (1989), set out a genealogy of the British royal family; biographies of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, Katherine Swynford and Elizabeth of York followed, alongside studies of Henry VIII and his court and of the Princes in the Tower. Weir writes historical fiction as well, including the Six Tudor Queens and Tudor Rose novels. The catalogue holds 59 titles between 1989 and 2026, the most recent being The Boleyn Secret.

Gordon Ramsay

27 books• 1 series

Gordon Ramsay, born 8 November 1966, is a British chef, restaurateur, television presenter and writer. Gordon Ramsay Restaurants, founded in 1997, has earned 17 Michelin stars in total and holds eight. Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, London, has kept three stars since 2001 and is run by chef Matt Abé. Ramsay first became famous through the 1999 British miniseries Boiling Point. The catalogue lists 27 books from 2000 to 2023, starting with Passion for Flavour, A Chef for All Seasons and Passion for Seafood (2000). Humble Pie (2006) and Playing with Fire (2007) are listed, and Gordon Ramsay's Uncharted (2023) is the newest. Quick and easy cooking and British cookery appear in the subject tags.

Tracy Borman is an English historian who writes royal history alongside historical fiction. Elizabeth's Women (2009), a group portrait of the women around Elizabeth I, is her best known book, and Thomas Cromwell (2014), The Private Lives of the Tudors (2016) and Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him (2018) follow. The Frances Gorges trilogy, opening with The King's Witch (2018), is her fiction. Borman became Chancellor of Bishop Grosseteste University in Lincoln in July 2022, and her catalogue runs to 16 titles, reaching The House of Boleyn (2026).

Antonia Fraser

40 books• 3 series

Antonia Fraser, born Antonia Pakenham on 27 August 1932, is a British writer of history, biography, novels and detective fiction. Fraser is the widow of Harold Pinter, the 2005 Nobel laureate in literature, and was known as Lady Antonia Pinter until his death in 2008. The catalogue runs to 40 books between 1954 and 2023, setting biographies and histories such as Mary Queen of Scots (1969), Cromwell (1973) and The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England (1975) beside the Jemima Shore detective novels. Subjects record kings and rulers, queens, England and women detectives.

Penelope Fitzgerald (1916-2000) was a novelist, poet, essayist and biographer from Lincoln, England, and a winner of the Booker Prize. The Times placed Fitzgerald among the 50 greatest British writers since 1945 in 2008, and in 2012 The Observer listed her final novel, The Blue Flower, among the ten best historical novels. A.S. Byatt called her Jane Austen's nearest heir for precision and invention. Sixteen books are catalogued between 1975 and 2008, opening with Edward Burne-Jones (1975) and taking in The Bookshop (1978), Offshore (1979), Human Voices (1980), At Freddie's (1982) and The Beginning of Spring (1988).

Geraldine McCaughrean

155 books• 14 series

Geraldine McCaughrean, born 6 June 1951, is a British children's novelist with more than 170 books to that name. Peter Pan in Scarlet (2004) is the official sequel to Peter Pan, commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital. McCaughrean has won the Carnegie Medal twice and the Michael L. Printz Award. Myths, legends, folklore and Bible stories appear among the subjects, and series include Myths and Legends of the World, Roman Myths and Brambledown Tales. The catalogue holds 155 books from One Thousand and One Arabian Nights (1982) to Under a Fire-Red Sky (2025).

M.J. Trow is the pen name of Meirion James Trow, a Welsh crime writer born 16 October 1949. The 105 catalogued books open with The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade (1985), and Lestrade, Peter Maxwell, Kit Marlowe and Margaret Murray each feature in a mystery series. Other series are Grand & Batchelor, Britannia, Calidus and Geoffrey Chaucer Mystery. Historical mystery, murder investigation and teachers are among the subjects, and Maxwell's Enigma (2026) is the newest title.

Maria Vegara and various others is the credited authorship on a picture-book biography series for readers in grades 1 to 3. Each 32-page volume covers a single figure: Agatha Christie and Audrey Hepburn in 2017; Ada Lovelace, Anne Frank, Ella Fitzgerald, Georgia O'Keeffe, Harriet Tubman, Jane Austen and Josephine Baker in 2018. Women, writers, suffragists and athletes recur across the subjects. The listing holds 64 titles dated 2017 to 2026, reaching Ed Sheeran (2026).

Simon Raven (1927-2001) was an English novelist, playwright, essayist and television writer, as well known for a louche life as for the work itself. Expelled from Charterhouse School, Raven served as an infantry officer in National Service, studied at King's College, Cambridge, and later resigned his commission over gambling debts rather than face a court martial. The catalogue holds 38 books dated 1959 to 2025, opening with Brother Cain and The Feathers of Death and taking in the Alms for Oblivion and First-Born of Egypt sequences. Upper-class England, cricket, the Second World War and gay military life recur as subjects.

Carolly Erickson wrote history and historical fiction, from The Records of Medieval Europe (1971) to The Spanish Queen (2013). An American author born 1 January 1943 and died 11 November 2020, Erickson took the RT Reader's Choice Award for best Historical Fiction in 2008 for The Tsarina's Daughter. English royalty supplies most of the subject matter: Bloody Mary (1978), Great Harry (1980), The First Elizabeth (1983) and Mistress Anne (1984) all treat the Tudors, with Josephine and Royal Panoply, both 1980, beside them. The catalogue holds 28 books at a median of 368 pages.

Kate Williams writes biography and history, with England's Mistress (2005) as the first catalogued book. Becoming Queen Victoria (2008), Young Elizabeth (2012), Josephine (2013) and Emma Hamilton (2016) are listed titles. The Pleasures of Men (2012), The Storms of War (2014) and The Edge of the Fall (2015) also appear, and the catalogue credits Williams with the De Witt Family series. Subject tags cover queens, empresses, marriage, mediums and the First World War.