D.J. Taylor is the author of two acclaimed biographies, Thackerary, and Orwell: The Life, which won the Whitbread Biography Prize in 2003. He has written six novels, the most recent being Kept: A Victorian Mystery. He is also well known as a critic and reviewer, and his other books include A Vain Conceit: British Fiction in the 1980s and After the War: the Novel and England since 1945. He is married to the novelist Rachel Hore. They have three sons and live in Norwich, UK.