Claire Tomalin is a former literary editor of the New Statesman and the Sunday Times . She has written seven highly acclaimed literary biographies, including Samuel Pepys, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award, and in 2011 the international bestseller Charles Dickens. She is married to the playwright and novelist Michael Frayn.
As near perfect a Life of Austen as we are likely to get: intelligent, feeling, suggestive -- Carmen Callil Daily Telegraph A book that radiates intelligence, wit and insight -- Michiko Kakutani New York Times A perfect biography: detailed, witty, warm -- Dirk Bogarde Sunday Telegraph Claire Tomalin is the finest and most disinterested of biographers, because in her pages she has given Jane Austen her liberty -- Hilary Mantel New York Review of Books