Hilary Spurling

Hilary Spurling, CBE, FRSL (born December 25th,1940) is a British writer, known as a journalist and biographer. She won the Whitbread Prize for the second volume of her biography of Henri Matisse in January 2006. Burying The Bones: Pearl Buck in China was published in March 2010.

She is married to playwright John Spurling, and has three children (Amy, Nathaniel and Gilbert) and two grandchildren.

Education

Spurling was educated at Clifton High School, an independent school in Bristol in South West England, followed by the University of Oxford.

Works

• Ivy When Young: The Early Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett 1884-1919 (1974)
• Mervyn Peake: Drawings (1974) editor
• A Handbook to Anthony Powell's Music of Time (1977) as Invitation to the Dance
• Secrets of a Woman's Heart: The Later Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett 1920-1969 (1984)
• Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book: Elizabethan Country House Cooking (1986)
• Paul Scott: A Life (1990)
• Paper Spirits. Collage Portraits by Vladimir Sulyagin (1992) introduction
• The Unknown Matisse: Volume 1 - A Life of Henri Matisse 1869-1908 (1998)
• La Grande Thérèse: The Greatest Swindle of the Century (1999) on Thérèse Humbert
• The Girl from the Fiction Department: A Portrait of Sonia Orwell (2002)
• Matisse the Master: The Conquest of Colour 1909-1954 (2005)
• Ann Stokes: Artists' Potter (contributor) (2009)
• Matisse: The Life (abridged version of two earlier works) (2009)

Awards

• 1976, Rose Mary Crawshay Prize for Ivy When Young: The Early Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett 1884-1919
• 1984, Duff Cooper Prize for Ivy When Young: The Early Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett 1884-1919
• 2005, Whitbread Book of the Year award for Matisse the Master: The Conquest of Colour 1909-1954
• 2010, James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography, for Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China

External links

• British Council page

Awards and achievements
Preceded by Winifred Gérin	Rose Mary Crawshay Prize 1967	Succeeded by Christine Alexander Gillian Beer