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Nigel Cawthorne (born 27 March 1951 in Wolverhampton) is a British freelance writer of fiction and non-fiction, [1] and an editor.
According to Cawthorne's website, he has written more than 150 books on a wide range of subjects. [2] He also contributed to The Guardian , the Daily Mirror , the Daily Mail , and the New-York Tribune . [3] He has appeared on television and BBC Radio 4's Today programme.[ citation needed ]
Prisoner of War series
Sex Lives series
Old England series
The Art of series
Mammoth Books
Brief Histories
Complete Illustrated Encyclopedias
Cawthorne's work has been negatively received by journalists and academics. In particular, Cawthorne's lack of an academic background and poor editorial standards have attracted criticism.
Ann W. Moore sharply criticized Tyrants in a School Library Journal review of the book:
This chronological look at 55 men and 5 women covers a wide range of geographical areas and time periods, although half the individuals are from the 20th century. Unfortunately, Cawthorne never defines the word "tyrant" or explains his selection process. His list is sure to offend — while all of the featured subjects exercised absolute power, they didn't necessarily do so with nefarious intent, and many are national heroes. Most readers would not mention Peter the Great or Napoleon in the same breath as Stalin, Hitler, or Idi Amin. The further reading is ridiculous, with only one general title, which isn't generally available, and four individual biographies, one on Mao Tse-tung, who isn't even included in the book. There is no introduction or conclusion, and the entries are unbalanced. The author also assumes a vast general knowledge, providing little to no historical context; the result is an often confusing jumble of names, dates, and places. The book contains numerous errors, typos, and internal inconsistencies, and none of the many quotations are footnoted. The few illustrations are primarily unappealing black-and-white reproductions and there are no maps. [6]
"Television director [David] Monaghan and author Cawthorne (Serial Killers and Mass Murderers ) fail to prove their case that Jack the Ripper, ...and a pseudonymous author known only as “Walter” were one and the same. ...the links Monaghan and Cawthorne try to establish with the Ripper ...are flimsy." [7]
The 2014 Flight MH370: The Mystery proposes a conspiracy theory regarding disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. The book was fiercely criticised in The Australian by David Free, who described it as an 'information gumbo' that 'reproduces the slapdash atmosphere of the worst kind of 24-hour news show' and advised readers 'Next time you're in one (a shop), buy any book other than this. I guarantee it won't be worse'. [8] The Daily Telegraph reported some relatives of the victims were angered by the book [9] In a May 2014 segment of the Australian television program Today, co-host Karl Stefanovic also took issue with guest Cawthorne. Stefanovic characterized the book as "disgusting" and insensitive to the families. [10]
Merryn Williams, writing for the Oxford Left Review said regarding the 2015 book Jeremy Corbyn: Leading from the Left, "His book is neither pro nor anti, though it sometimes uses loaded terms like ‘moderate’ and ‘hard left’. It has been unkindly described on Amazon as ‘a fleshed-out Wikipedia entry’, and there are very many typos, but it does give a fairly accurate account of Jeremy’s career up to September 2015. Hardly anything is said, though, about the fascinating subject of exactly how and why he got elected." [11]
Terence Graham Parry Jones was a Welsh actor, comedian, director, historian, writer and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe.
Dame Vivienne Isabel Westwood was an British fashion designer and businesswoman, largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream. In 2022, Sky Arts ranked her the 4th most influential artist in Britain of the last 50 years.
Charles Raymond Starkweather was an American spree killer who murdered eleven people in Nebraska and Wyoming between November 1957 and January 1958, when he was nineteen years old. He killed ten of his victims between January 21 and January 29, 1958, the date of his arrest. During his spree in 1958, Starkweather was accompanied by his fourteen-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate.
"The Boscombe Valley Mystery", one of the fifty-six short Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is the fourth of the twelve stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in the Strand Magazine in October 1891.
"The Adventure of the Dying Detective", in some editions simply titled "The Dying Detective", is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories that were written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was originally published in Collier's in the United States on 22 November 1913, and The Strand Magazine in the United Kingdom in December 1913. Together with seven other stories, it was collected in His Last Bow.
The Servant Girl Annihilator, also known as the Austin Axe Murderer and the Midnight Assassin, was an unidentified American serial killer who preyed upon the city of Austin, Texas, in 1884 and 1885. The sobriquet originated with the writer O. Henry. The series of eight axe murders were referred to by contemporary sources as the Servant Girl Murders.
Dylan John Jones OBE is an English journalist and author. He served as editor of the UK version of men's fashion and lifestyle magazine GQ from 1999 to 2021. In June 2023 Jones became the new editor-in-chief of the London Evening Standard which had been without a full-time editor since the previous October.
Mark Bodē ( born February 18, 1963) is an American cartoonist. The son of underground comics legend Vaughn Bodē, Mark shares the Bodē family style and perpetuates many of his late father's creations as well as his own works. He is best known for his work on Cobalt-60, Miami Mice, and The Lizard of Oz. Bodē has also worked for Heavy Metal magazine and on The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Hallie Rubenhold is an American-born British historian and author. Her work specializes in 18th and 19th century social history and women's history. Her 2019 book The Five, about the lives of the women murdered by Jack the Ripper, was shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize and won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction. Rubenhold's focus on the victims of murder, rather than on the identity or the acts of the perpetrator, has been credited with changing attitudes to the proper commemoration of such crimes and to the appeal and function of the true crime genre.
Christian Tage Forter Wolmar is a British journalist, author, railway historian and Labour Party politician. He is known for his commentary on transport, especially as a pundit on Britain's railway industry, and was named Transport Journalist of the Year in the National Transport Awards in 2007. He is an advocate for cycling, and is on the board of the London Cycling Campaign as well as having founded Labour Cycles, which encourages the Labour Party to adopt a pro-cycling agenda.
Maxim Jakubowski is an English writer of crime fiction, erotica, and science fiction, and also a rock music critic.
Gordon Burn was an English writer born in Newcastle upon Tyne and the author of four novels and several works of non-fiction.
Stephen Jones is an English editor of horror anthologies, and the author of several book-length studies of horror and fantasy films as well as an account of H. P. Lovecraft's early British publications.
Alan Marshall Clark is an American author and artist who is best known as the illustrator and book cover painter of many pieces of horror fiction. He was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel for his 2005 book Siren Promised.
Michael Raymond Donald Ashley is a British bibliographer, author and editor of science fiction, mystery, and fantasy.
Jan Steven Strnad is an American writer of comic books, horror, and science fiction. He is known for his many collaborations with artist Richard Corben, as well as his work in the Star Wars expanded universe, the majority of which has been published by Dark Horse Comics. He has also written for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Eclipse Comics, and Fantagraphics Books.
The Cases That Haunt Us is a 2000 non-fiction book written by John E. Douglas, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation profiler and investigative chief, and Mark Olshaker. Profiling is described by Rodger Lyle Brown, author of the book review, as "the art and science of looking at the specifics of a crime -- the scene, the facts about the victim, the evidence and the act itself -- and extrapolating a portrait of the culprit's psyche and personal habits."
Flight MH370: The Mystery is a 2014 book by the American-born-British author Nigel Cawthorne concerning the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
Amanda Howard is an Australian fiction writer, true crime author, and expert on serial killers.
Alun Kyte, known as the Midlands Ripper, is an English double murderer, serial rapist, child rapist, paedophile and suspected serial killer. He was convicted in 2000 of the murders of two sex workers, 20-year-old Samo Paull and 30-year-old Tracey Turner, whom he killed in December 1993 and March 1994 respectively. After his conviction, investigators announced their suspicions that Kyte could have been behind a number of other unsolved murders of sex workers across Britain in the 1980s and 1990s. He was apprehended due to the ground-breaking investigations of a wider police enquiry named Operation Enigma, which was launched in 1996 in response to the murders of Paull, Turner and of a large number of other sex workers. Kyte was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years imprisonment for the murders of Paull and Turner.