Adam Nicolson

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For the Canadian football player, see Adam Nicolson (Canadian football).

Adam Nicolson
Born (1957-09-12) 12 September 1957 (age 63)
Bransgore, England
OccupationWriter
Alma materMagdalene College, Cambridge
Period1981 to present
GenreHistory, memoir, nature, place
SpouseOlivia Fane (divorced)
​
(m. 1992)​
Children5
RelativesNigel Nicolson (father)
Philippa née Tennyson-d'Eyncourt (mother)

Adam Nicolson, 5th Baron Carnock FSA FSA Scot FRSL (born 12 September 1957) is an English author who has written about history, landscape, great literature and the sea.

He is noted for his books Sea Room (about the Shiant Isles, a group of uninhabited islands in the Hebrides); God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible; The Mighty Dead (US title:Why Homer Matters) exploring the epic Greek poems; The Seabird's Cry about the disaster afflicting the world's seabirds; and The Making of Poetry on the Romantic Revolution in England in the 1790s.

Biography[]

Adam Nicolson is the son of writer Nigel Nicolson and his wife Philippa Tennyson-d'Eyncourt. He is the grandson of the writers Vita Sackville-West and Sir Harold Nicolson, and great-grandson of Sir Eustace Tennyson d'Eyncourt and Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock. He was educated at Eaton House, Summer Fields School,[1] Eton College where he was a King's Scholar, and Magdalene College, Cambridge. He has worked as a journalist and columnist on the Sunday Times, the Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Telegraph, National Geographic Magazine and Granta, where he is a contributing editor. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Society of Antiquaries and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

He has made several television series (with Keo Films) and radio series (with Tim Dee, the writer and radio producer) on a variety of subjects including the King James Bible, 17th-century literacy, Crete, Homer, the idea of Arcadia, the untold story of Britain's 20th-century whalers and the future of Atlantic seabirds.

Between 2005 and 2009, in partnership with the National Trust, Nicolson led a project which transformed the 260 acres (110 ha) surrounding the house and garden at Sissinghurst into a productive mixed farm, growing meat, fruit, cereals and vegetables for the National Trust restaurant.[2] And between 2012 and 2017, together with the RSPB, the EU and SNH, Nicolson and his son Tom were partners in a project to eradicate invasive predators from the Shiant Isles, Outer Hebrides, Scotland. In March 2018, the islands were declared rat-free.[3]

In December 2008 he succeeded his cousin David Nicolson, 4th Baron Carnock, as 5th Baron Carnock but he does not use the title.[4]

Personal life[]

Nicolson met his first wife, the writer Olivia Fane, when he was a student at Cambridge University. They married in 1982, and had sons William (born 1986); and Ben (born 1988).[citation needed] The couple lived in an open marriage during the period of their relationship. Both partners had affairs,[5] and it was while on skiing trip to Switzerland that Nicolson had an affair with the woman who was to become his second wife, the writer and gardener Sarah Raven. After a further 18 months, Nicolson and Fane were divorced. In 1992, he married Raven, with whom he has two daughters: Rosie (born 1993); Molly (born 1996). The family live at Perch Hill Farm [6] in Sussex.

Awards and recognition[]

Books[]

  • The National Trust Book of Long Walks (1981)
  • Long Walks in France (1983)
  • Frontiers (1985)
  • Wetland (1987)
  • Two Roads to Dodge City (1988) with Nigel Nicolson
  • Prospects of England (1990)
  • On Foot: Guided Walks in England, France, and the United States (1990)
  • Restoration: Rebuilding of Windsor Castle (1997)
  • Regeneration: The Story of the Dome (1999)
  • Perch Hill: A New Life (2000)
  • Mrs Kipling: The Hated Wife (2001)
  • Sea Room (2001)
  • Power and Glory: The Making of the King James Bible (US title: God's Secretaries) (2003) (reissued in 2011 as When God Spoke English)
  • Seamanship (2004)
  • Men of Honour: Trafalgar and the Making of the English Hero (US title: Seize the Fire: Heroism, Duty, and the Battle of Trafalgar) (2005)
  • Earls of Paradise (US title: Quarrel with the King) (2008)
  • Sissinghurst: An Unfinished History (2008/US revised edition 2010)
  • Arcadia: The Dream of Perfection in Renaissance England (a revised paperback edition of Earls of Paradise) (2009)
  • The Smell of Summer Grass (an updated edition of Perch Hill) (2011)
  • The Gentry: Stories of the English (2011)
  • The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters (US title: Why Homer Matters) (2014)
  • The Seabird's Cry: The Life and Loves of Puffins, Gannets and Other Ocean Voyagers (2017) (US subtitle: The Lives and Loves of the Planet's Great Ocean Voyagers (2018))
  • The Making of Poetry: Coleridge, the Wordsworths and their Year of Marvels (2019/US edition 2020)
  • The sea is not made of water: life between the tides (2021/US edition 2022)

Television[]

  • Atlantic Britain Channel 4, 2004
  • Sissinghurst BBC 4, 2009
  • When God Spoke English: The Making of the King James Bible BBC 4, 2011
  • The Century That Wrote Itself BBC 4, 2013
  • Britain's Whale Hunters BBC 4, 2014
  • The Last Seabird Summer? BBC 4, 2016

Radio[]

  • Homer's Landscapes 3 x 45 mins, BBC Radio 3, 2008
  • A Cretan Spring 5 x 15 mins, with Sarah Raven, BBC Radio 3, 2009
  • Dark Arcadias 2 x 45 mins, BBC Radio 3, 2011

References[]

  1. ^ Adam Nicolson. Prepared for Anything. The Times Magazine, 25 June 1994. pages 24–30.
  2. ^ Sunday Times, 8 February 2009
  3. ^ BBC: Shiant Islands in the Minch declared rat-free
  4. ^ rexfeatures.com Rex Features 31 January 2009, Adam Nicolson, 5th Baron Carnock at home at Sissinghurst Castle
  5. ^ Olivia Fane (2020). Why Sex Doesn’t Matter. Mensch.
  6. ^ Perch Hill Farm

External links[]

Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
David Nicolson 		Baron Carnock
2008–present 		Incumbent
Heir apparent:
Hon. Thomas Nicolson
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