Jenny Uglow grew up in Cumbria, and now works in publishing. Her books include prize-winning biographies of Elizabeth Gaskell and William Hogarth. The Lunar Men, published in 2002, was described in the Observer as 'a spectacular, epic book ... Never has the eighteenth century come so much to life,' while her most recent book, A Little History of British Gardening, was called 'a delight from beginning to end' in the Observer. She lives in Canterbury.