Authors

Lacey, Stephen

Stephen Lacey combines a flair for writing with a successful career in gardening and garden design. He is a gardening correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and contributes to various magazines, including Country Homes and Interiors and Hortus. He lives in London, SW7. For more information on Stephen visit his website www.stephenlacey.com

Laird, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Laird is the renowned author of Kiss the Dust, The Garbage King and A Little Piece of Ground. She has been shortlisted five times for the Carnegie Medal. She has a longstanding interest in Persian literature and has travelled extensively throughout the Middle East. Her other books for Frances Lincoln are Pea Boy: Stories from Iran, A Fistful of Pearls: Stories from Iraq, and The Ogress and the Snake: Stories from Somalia. .....

Lambert, Katherine

Katherine Lambert is a distinguished and prolific garden writer and editor. She has worked on the Good Gardens Guide since 1996 and has been Joint Editor since 2004. She helped to edit Rosemary Verey’s The Garden in Winter, was co-editor with her of The American Man’s Garden and Secret Gardens, is author of Hell with a Capital H, the story of six survivors of Scott’s last expedition (Pimlico, 2002). .....

Lancaster, Osbert

Sir Osbert Lancaster produced several books on architecture, and from 1939 onwards he produced cartoons for the Daily Express, using his character Maudie Littlehampton to satirise upper-class preoccupations. He died in 1986.

Lane, Penny Ann

Penny Ann Lane has worked for many years as a Montessori teacher. She comes from a family of architects and she is committed to showing how beautiful architecture can be. This is her first book for Frances Lincoln. Penny lives in Fyfield in Oxfordshire.

Lane, Roger

Roger Lane came into photography through motor racing with sponsorship from Agfa Gevaert in the late 1960's. His images were subsequently used in magazines, books and promotional media. In 2009 a selection of his classic motor racing images are to be published in a book Out of the Shadows (Halsgrove). Photographing and writing about gardens has long been another interest, and Roger has produced a number of magazine features with a particular interest in France and the landscapes of the French Impressionists. .....

Lane Fox, Louisa

Louisa Lane Fox was co-founder of the Last Word Lunchtime Lectures. Her husband is the architectural critic and landscape designer Charles Jencks. She is a mother, stepmother and grandmother.

Lane Fox, Robin

ROBIN LANE FOX is the gardening correspondent for The Financial Times.

Langley, Jonathan

Jonathan Langley was born in 1952 and studied at the Liverpool College of Art and the Central School of Art and Design. A hugely successful author and illustrator of children's books, his titles for HarperCollins have sold over a million copies throughout the world. Shine was written in collaboration with his wife, Karen Langley. They are based in Arnside, Cumbria.

To visit Jonathan's website click

Langley, Karen

Karen Langley lives in the Lake District. She wrote Shine in collaboration with her husband, Jonathan Langley.

Lasdun, James

James Lasdun was born in London and now lives in upstate New York. He has published three books of poetry—A Jump Start, Woman Police Officer in Elevator, and Landscape with Chainsaw—and three collections of short stories, most recently Besieged (Selected Stories), of which the title story was made into a film by Bernardo Bertolucci.

Latham, Andy

Andy Latham is a landscape photographer specialising in the beautiful scenery of northern England, from the windswept Northumberland coast to the gentle moorland above his home in Bolton. His photographs reflect an appreciation of light and the landscape, whether it is a dramatic view in a national park or in the subtler beauty of the less heralded corners of England. Andy is a regular contributor to numerous magazines, including Outdoor Photography. .....

Latiolais, Michelle

Michelle Latiolais is a member of the Programs in Writing at the University of California at Irvine where she is associate professor of English. She is the author of the novel Even Now.

Latymer, Hugo

Hugo Latymer was an authority on plant cultivation and garden design in Mediterranean regions. He spent many years living and gardening on Majorca and became an acknowledged authority on designing and cultivating gardens suited to the dry, hot climate there. He died in 2003.

Lavelle, Des

Des Lavelle is a veteran of many years of the Skellig islands and is the son, grandson, and great grandson of a lighthouse family. Author, historian, diver, photographer, lecturer and ornithologist, he runs regular tours of the islands during the Summer. His intimate knowledge of the islands, his passion for island photography and his live slide presentations about the Skelligs have taken him on lecture tours all over Europe and to about thirty cities of the USA. .....

Lawson, Andrew

As well as being a distinguished garden photographer – he holds the Royal Horticultural Society's Gold Medal for photography – Andrew Lawson is a painter, a passionate and knowledgeable gardener, and author of several successful gardening books.

To visit Andrew Lawson's website click here

Laye, Camara

Camara Laye (1928-1980) was born in Kouroussa, a large village on the river Niger in the French West African colony of Upper Guinea. The Camaras are one of the oldest clans of the Malinke people, and Camara Laye's father, a goldsmith, was a man of considerable local authority. The eldest of seven children, Camara spent his formative years in Koranic and French elementary schools before winning a scholarship to study automobile engineering in Argenteuil, outside Paris. .....

Lazarus, Sarah

Sarah Lazarus is a science and natural history writer who has written extensively for the Natural History Museum and Science Museum. She has also contributed to four books from the Rough Guide travel series and numerous television programmes as varied as Mastermind and Survival. She is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Le Corbusier,

Leaf, Munro

Munro Leaf (1905-1976) was an American writer, illustrator, and columnist whose books for children include Manners Can Be Fun and How to Behave and Why (both of which he also illustrated). In 1936 he "dashed off in 25 minutes" a story about a bull who preferred flowers to bullfights as a showcase for the artistic talent of his friend Robert Lawson. The Story of Ferdinand went on to become a best-seller and the two men collaborated on three subsequent books, Wee Gillis (1938), The Story of Simpson and Sampson (1941), and Aesop's Fables (1941).

Leavitt, David

David Leavitt is the author of several novels, including The Body of Jonah Boyd, While England Sleeps, and most recently, The Indian Clerk. A recipient of fellowships from both the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, he teaches at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Leavy, Una

Una Leavy has written many books for children. She works as a primary school teacher in County Mayo. Una Leavy was born in Charlestown, Co. Mayo. She has been writing since early childhood. A primary school teacher by profession, she is married to Lorcán and they have six children. Her writing includes poetry, articles and short stories which have been published in various magazines and periodicals. .....

Leclerc, Caroline

Caroline Leclerc studied history at Harvard University, USA. She is the Editorial Director of a large publishing company in Paris. A huge fan of contemporary art, she shares an unbridled passion for stickers with her children! She lives in Paris, France.

Lee, Alastair

Alastair Lee has been taking photographs since he first went travelling at the age of twenty. The main focus in front of the camera has always been his passion for rock climbing and mountaineering. The author of two travel guides to Australia and New Zealand, Alastair's first full colour photography book was Eyes Up (2003), a selection of images from his worldwide travels. This was followed by Forgotten Landscape (2004), and his acclaimed Pendle (2009), a collection of photographs of his beloved Pendle Hill in Lancashire. .....

Leech, Margaret

Margaret Leech (1893-1974) was an American historian, novelist and dramatist. She twice received the Pulitzer Prize in history, for Reveille in Washington (1952) and In the Days of McKinley (1960); with the former she became the first woman to receive a Pulitzer in that category.

Leeson, Robert

Robert Leeson started a career in journalism aged 16. In 1946 he began two years' army service in the Middle East and developed a keen interest in Arabic culture. Since the early 1970s he has written history books and over 70 children's books, and contributed to literary journals. His book Grange Hill Rules OK? inspired the highly successful BBC series Grange Hill. Over the past 30 years he has visited over 600 schools and libraries encouraging children in reading and creative writing. .....

Lehman, David

David Lehman's new book of poems, his sixth, is When a Woman Loves a Man. He is the series editor of The Best American Poetry, the annual anthology he founded in 1988, and is currently preparing a new edition of The Oxford Book of American Poetry. His nonfiction books include The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets and Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man.

Lennon, Tom

Tom Lennon's fiction is noted for its understanding of gay politics in modern society and for the sympathetic and honest treatment of the characters it depicts.

Lennox-Boyd, Arabella

Arabella Lennox-Boyd has undertaken over 240 commissions and won gold medals at five Chelsea Flower Shows, including a Best Garden award in 1998. To visit her website click here

Lepman, Jella

Jella Lepman, born in Stuttgart in 1891, was the second of three daughters of a Jewish factory owner. She organised an international reading room for children when she was only seventeen. Her husband, a German American, died when her two children were tiny, leaving her a widow at thirty-one. She became a journalist and in 1928 published her first children's book. When Hitler came to power, she lost her post in the German Democratic Party and on the advice of friends sought safety in London. .....

Leppert, Stefan

Stefan Leppert, born in 1959, trained as a gardener and worked in gardening and landscaping before studying landscape architecture at Osnabrueck, Lower Saxony; he went on to work as a garden and landscape architect in various design practices, then joined the “Garten + Landschaft” editorial team for five years. In 2001 he set up an editorial office in Munster and has contributed numerous articles on garden design and landscape architecture to magazines and books.

Lerner, Ben

Lesbros, Dominique

Dominique Lesbros is the author of numerous books, including Musées insolites de Paris (Unusual Museums of Paris), Découvertes insolites autour de Paris (Unusual Discoveries around Paris) and Les Coulisses de Paris (Paris, Behind the Scenes).

Lesser, Wendy

Wendy Lesser is the founding editor of The Threepenny Review and the author of six books of nonfiction. Her reviews and essays have appeared in periodicals around the country, and she has been a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Arts Jouranlism Program, and the American Academy in Berlin. She lives in Berkeley, California.

Lester, Alison

Alison Lester is the well-known creator of many popular and award-winning children's books, many of which reflect her own country childhood. Her picture books include Magic Beach, Imagine, My Farm, Alison Lester's abc, and Yikes! She has written four Bonnie and Sam novels (illustrated by Roland Harvey) and two novels for older children, The Quicksand Pony and The Snow Pony

Lethem, Jonathan

JONATHAN LETHEM is the author of eight novels, including Girl in Landscape and Chronic City, and five collections of stories and essays, including The Ecstasy of Influence (2011). He has previously written the introductions for the NYRB Classics editions of A Meaningful Life by L.J. Davis and On the Yard by Malcolm Braly. He teaches at Pomona College and lives in Los Angeles and Maine.

Levesque, Kim Horton

Kim Horton Levesque is a professional writer and French translator. She has worked primarily in the U.S. beauty industry for the past three years. She has a background in teaching and journalism, and is now focusing on travel writing. Kim spent many years studying, traveling and working in France and Western Europe and continues to be an avid traveler. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with her husband and three daughters. .....

Levi, Peter

Peter Levi (1931-2000) was a poet, travel writer, biographer, and Fellow of St. Catherine's College, Oxford. He was widely known for his translations from the Greek.

Levine, Rhoda

Rhoda Levine is the author of seven children's books (two of which were illustrated by Edward Gorey) and is an accomplished director and choreographer. In addition to working for major opera houses in the United States and Europe, she has choreographed shows on and off Broadway, and in London's West End. Among the world premieres she has directed are Der Kaiser von Atlantis, by Viktor Ullmann, and The Life and Times of Malcolm X and Wakonda's Dream, both by Anthony Davis. .....

Levine, Suzanne Jill

Suzanne Jill Levine is the author of numerous studies in Latin American literature and the translator of works by Adolfo Bioy Casares, Jorge Luis Borges, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, and Manuel Puig, among other distinguished writers. Levine’s most recent book is Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman: His Life and Fictions. She is a professor in the Spanish Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Lewis, David N.

Now retired, David Lewis was Collections Manager for invertebrates at the Natural History Museum, where he worked for over 40 years.

Lewis, Miles

Miles Lewis is an architectural historian with a special interest in the cultural history of building technology, prefabrication, and vernacular architecture. He is an Honorary Life Member of the Comité International d'Architecture Vernaculaire, a Fellow of the International Advisory Council of the Royal Institute of Architects, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, a Member of the Order of Australia, and Professor of Architecture at the University of Melbourne. .....

Lewis, Naomi

Naomi Lewis is a leading authority on the writing of Hans Christian Andersen. She herself is a distinguished children's writer, poet, anthologiser and a much-respected reviewer of children's books.

Lewis, Philippa

Philippa Lewis is a picture researcher, author and editor. Previous publications include Details: A Guide to House Design in Britain. She is married to the painter Miles Thistlethwaite and lives in Somerset. Visit Philippa's website at
www.philippalewis.com

Leys, Simon

Simon Leys is the pen name of the literary critic, essayist, historical novelist, and eminent sinologist Pierre Ryckmans. Born in Belgium in 1935, he settled in Australia in 1970 and was a professor of Chinese studies at the University of Sydney from 1987 to 1993. His works include Chinese Shadows (1977), The Death of Napoleon (1991), a new translation of the Analects of Confucius (1997), and The Angel and the Octopus (1999). .....

Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg was born in 1742 in Oberramstadt, Germany. In 1763 he joined the University of Gottingen where he studied mathematics and the natural sciences and, in 1770 was appointed a professor at the university. In addition to his scientific writings, he wrote Letters from England and a book on Hogarth's etchings. Lichtenberg died in 1799.

Lilla, Mark

Mark Lilla is Professor at the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He is the author of G.B. Vico: The Making of an Anti-Modern(1993) and the editor of New French Thought: Political Philosophy (1991). His latest book is The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West.

Lim, Rebecca

Rebecca Lim is a writer and illustrator based in Melbourne, Australia. She worked as a commercial lawyer for several years before leaving to write full time. Rebecca is the author of twelve books for children and young adult readers, most recently Mercy and Exile. Her novels have been translated into German, French and Turkish.

Limon, Helen

HELEN LIMON, winner of the 2011 Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Award, started writing in 2000, when she set up a children's literature project in Newcastle which turned into a publishing venture for local authors and illustrators. She has just finished a PhD in Creative Writing at Newcastle University, and has also been running workshops for young volunteers in Shiremoor, artists in Russia and the Women's Institute in Wales. .....

Lincoln, Roger

Roger Lincoln is Scientific Associate in the Department of Zoology, and has had a close involvement in the design and development of the new Darwin Centre.

Lind, Jakov

Jakov Lind (1927-2007) was born in Vienna. He fled Austria when he was eleven, finding temporary refuge in Holland, and then surviving inside Nazi Germany by assuming a Dutch identity. After a literary apprenticeship in Israel, he moved to London, where he wrote, in German, the short stories and novels on which his stature as a major European writer is based: Soul of Wood, Landscape in Concrete, and Ergo.

Linden, Sonja

Sonja Linden is a playwright and short story writer and has edited plays, poetry and short fiction. As Writer in Residence for the Medical Foundation, she set up the Write to Life Project to help refugees and asylum seekers

Lindesay, William

During his 20-year-long passion for the Great Wall, author-photographer William Lindesay has spent 1,200 days investigating the structure. In 1987 he made a 2,470-km solo journey on foot along the Wall from Jiayuguan to Shanhaiguan, Since settling in China in 1990, he has established International Friends of the Great Wall, an NGO which cooperates on preservation projects with the Beijing Administration of Cultural Heritage and the World Monuments Fund. .....

Lindsay, Norman

Norman Lindsay (1879-1970) wrote The Magic Pudding to settle an argument with a friend who claimed that children liked to read about fairies. Lindsay argued instead that they liked to read about food. The author of several novels, Lindsay was also a caricaturist, sculptor, painter, and pen-and-ink artist renowned in Australia and beyond.

Ling, Robert

Linklater, Magnus

Magnus Linklater was editor of The Scotsman from 1988 to 1994 and now writes a column for sister paper Scotland on Sunday. He was appointed as chairman of the Scottish Arts Council in 1996, holding the post for five years, and is currently chairman of the Little Sparta Trust, which maintains the garden of the late Ian Hamilton Finlay in the Pentland Hills. The son of Scottish writer Eric Linklater, Magnus was born in Orkney and lives in Edinburgh's New Town.

Liscio, Lorraine

Lorraine Liscio is a writer and editor who has taught at Boston College, where she was the Director of Women's Studies.

Lisson, Deborah

Deborah Lisson is a well-known author of young adult fiction, living in Banbury, Australia. Her passion for the story of Red Hugh led her to research this book in Ireland. Her novel The Devil's Own won the Western Australia Premier's Award for Children's Fiction and was shortlisted for the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award in 1991; her book, A Place of Safety, won the Western Australia Premier's Award for Children's Literature in 1997. .....

Lister, Adrian

Adrian Lister is Research Leader in Palaeontology at the Natural History Museum and was previously Professor of Palaeobiology at University College, London. He contributes regularly to TV and radio programmes on palaeontology and evolution. He was also a consultant on the BBC TV series Walking with Beasts.

Litton, Helen

Livesey, Margot

Margot Livesey was born and grew up on the edge of the Scottish Highlands and now lives in the US. She is the author of a collection of stories and four novels: Homework, Criminals, The Missing World, and Eva Moves the Furniture.

Livingstone, Rodney

Rodney Livingstone is a professor emeritus in German Studies at the University of Southampton and a well-known translator of books by Theodor W. Adorno, Max Weber, and Walter Benjamin, among others. In 2009 he was awarded the Ungar German Translation Prize of the American Translators' Association for his translation of Detlev Claussen's Theodor W. Adorno: One Last Genius.

Llewellyn, Claire

Claire Llewellyn specialises in books for younger readers. Her My First Book of Time won the Times Educational Supplement Junior Information Book Award in 1992.

Lloyd, Christopher

Christopher Lloyd was among the best informed, liveliest, most worthwhile gardening writers of our time and the author of a host of classics. He lived in Northiam, East Sussex and died in January 2006.

Lloyd, Christopher

Christopher Lloyd read history at Cambridge, getting a double first, before becoming Technology correspondent for The Sunday Times. Since leaving journalism he has run a number of internet and educational publishing businesses. He now divides his time between writing books, journalism, and lecturing mostly in schools, museums and literary festivals. His books include the hugely popular What on Earth Happened? and What on Earth Evolved? Chris lives in Tonbridge, Kent in the UK. .....

Llywelyn, Morgan

Historian and novelist Morgan Llywelyn was born in New York City, but after the death of her husband and parents in 1985 returned to Ireland to take up citizenship in the land of her grandparents and make her permanent home there.

After making the shortlist for the United States Olympic Team in Dressage in 1975, but not making the team itself, she turned to writing historical novels exploring her Celtic roots. .....

Lock, Leon

Léon Lock received his Doctor's degree in Art History from the University of London. He is Secretary General of the Patrimoine Culturel Immobilier, Brussels, and Founding President of The Low Countries Sculpture Society, Brussels.

Visit
www.roberto-polo-the-eye.com for more information

Lockwood, Charles

Charles Lockwood is Lecturer in Human Evolution in the Department of Anthropology at University College London. He is an expert on early hominid taxonomy and evolutionary relationships. He previously worked in the Department of Anthropology at Arizona State University and at various South African and Ethiopian fossil sites, and currently leads a field project in northeastern Ethiopia. Charles currently lives in central London.

Long, Dixon

Long, Dixon and Ruthanne

Dixon Long and Ruthanne Long are co-authors of Markets of Provence. His is also a novelist and short story writer, as well as dean emeritus and professor emeritus of political science at Case Western Reserve University. Ruthanne Long was a food consultant for wineries in the Napa Valley. They have lived in Provence and Paris.

Long, John

John Long was born in Melbourne, Australia and began collecting fossils at the age of 7. He was for many years Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the Museum of Western Australia and is now Head of Sciences at Museum Victoria.

Long, Katie

Looby, Christopher

Christopher Looby is the author of Voicing America: Language, Literary Form, and the Origins of the United States and he edited The Complete Civil War Journal and Selected Letters of Thomas Wentworth Higginson. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches in the English Department at UCLA.

Looney, Fiona

FIONA LOONEY writes a regular column in The Sunday Tribune, from which this account is taken. She has also worked for Hot Press, for BBC Radio in London and as a scriptwriter for RTÉ, and is a regular on the Gerry Ryan Show. She lives in Dublin with her husband and three children.

Lopate, Phillip

Phillip Lopate is the author of the essay collections Against Joie de Vivre, Bachelorhood, Being with Children, Portrait of My Body, and Totally, Tenderly, Tragically, and of the novels The Rug Merchant and Confessions of a Summer. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Lord, Tony

Tony Lord, photographer, writer and horticultural consultant, holds the Victoria Medal of Honour of the RHS. He has also won the Garden Writers' Guild Award for Best General Gardening Book.

Louie, Elaine

Elaine Louie is a writer on staff at The New York Times. She is the author and co-author of many books, and won the 1995 James Beard Journalism Award for a series of articles on ethnic cuisine in New York City.

Lousada, Sandra

Sandra Lousada is famous for her theatre photographs, her photographs of children, and her iconic portraits of such luminaries as Laurence Olivier, Joan Plowright, Vanessa Redgrave, Albert Finney and Julie Christie. Her photographs have illustrated many books, including, most recently, London's Parks and Gardens, by Jill Billington, and Hampstead Heath, by Deborah Wolton and David McDowall (both Frances Lincoln). .....

Lowry, Brigid

Brigid Lowry was born in New Zealand. She now lives there, having spent some time in Australia. In previous incarnations she has been a flower child, a waitress and a school teacher. She has published short stories and poetry as well as adult and young adult fiction. Her novel Guitar Highway Rose was shortlisted for the 1998 Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award for older readers. .....

Lowry, Malcolm

Malcolm Lowry (July 28, 1909–June 27, 1957) was born in New Brighton, England, the youngest of four sons of Arthur O. Lowry, a rich Liverpool businessman and devout Methodist. Brought up largely by nannies, he attended the Leys School in Cambridge before shipping out "to see the world" on the merchant steamer Pyrrhus, an ordeal that supplied him with the material for his first novel, Ultramarine. .....

Lubbock, Tom

Tom Lubbock, critic and illustrator, was the chief art critic of the Independent from 1997 until his death in 2011. He wrote widely on art, books and radio and produced major catalogue essays on Goya, Thomas Bewick and Ian Hamilton Finlay. His illustrations, mainly done in collage, appeared every Saturday on the editorial page of the Independent between 1999 and 2004. His weekly Great Works column, from which these essays are taken, ran between 2005 and 2010.

Luckhurst, Gerald

GERALD LUCKHURST is a landscape architect who has designed and built many gardens on the island. He is an expert plantsman with an unrivalled knowledge of sub-tropical flora. Each year he leads a number of specialist garden tours of the island.

Lukacs, John

John Lukacs was born in Budapest in 1924. He has written twenty-five works of history and criticism, including Budapest 1900: A Historical Portrait of a City and It's Culture; Historical Consciousness: Or, The Remembered Past; The Duel: The Eighty-Day Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler; and, most recently, George Kennan: A Study of Character.

Lurie, Alison

Alison Lurie is the author of many highly praised novels for adults and children. She currently divides her time between Ithaca, New York, Key West and London. Previous titles include The Truth About Lorin Jones (Prix Femina Étranger, 1989), and Foreign Affairs (1985 Pulitzer Prize for fiction).

Lyle, Susanna

Dr Susanna Lyle has over 25 years of practical and academic experience in plant and soil studies. She has taught horticulture, plant science and garden design and has planned and planted private and community woodlands and gardens. She has also spent many years editing a range of scientific and educational books and journals. After travelling in many countries, observing and studying plants in many climates and locations, she now lives in Northland, New Zealand. .....

Lyons, Fergus

Fergus Lyons is an artist and lives in the hills of County Sligo. He exhibits his work frequently.