Andrew McConnell Stott

[Stott] has an uncommon gift for reporting on the past as if it had happened yesterday, and to him personally. ” Andrew McConnell Stott is the author of four books of non-fiction: Comedy (Routledge, 2005; 2nd edn, 2014); The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi (Canongate, 2009), which won the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize for Non-Fiction,... the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography, the George Freedley Memorial Award, and was a BBC Radio 4 "Book of the Week"; and The Poet and the Vampyre: The Curse of Byron and the Birth of Literature's Greatest Monsters , described by The Boston Globe as a period noir, full of atmospheric carriage rides, aggrieved letters, and deep personal miseries." The Poet and the Vampyre was was a book of the year for both The Big Issue and The Sunday Times, and the basis for a BBC documentary produced by Oxford Scientific Films . His most recent book is What Blest Genius?: The Jubilee that Made Shakespeare (Norton, 2019), which tells the story of three strange days in 1769 that established William Shakespeare's reputation as the greatest writer of all time. What Blest Genius? won the National Award for Arts Writing, was a New York Times Book Review Editors Choice, and a book of the year for both the London Evening Standard and The Sunday Times. He is also co-editor, with Eric Weitz, of the six-volume Cultural History of Comedy (Bloomsbury, 2020). Andrew is the recipient of fellowships from the British Academy, the Huntington Library, the American Council on Education and the New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. He is Professor of English at the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles. Agent: Emma Parry at Janklow and Nesbit , 445 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022, USARead More