Ruth Scurr

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Ruth Scurr
FRSL
Ruth Scurr 2009.jpg
Alma mater Oxford University; Cambridge University; Ecole Normale Supérieure
Employer Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Notable work
  • Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution (2006)
  • John Aubrey: My Own Life (2015)
SpouseSir Peter Stothard (m. 2021)
Website www.ruthscurr.co.uk

Ruth Scurr, aka Lady Stothard, is a British writer, historian and literary critic. She is a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. [1]

Contents

Education

Scurr was educated at St Bernard's Convent, Slough; Oxford University, Cambridge University and the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris. She won a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2000.

Works

Scurr's first book, Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution (Chatto & Windus, 2006; Metropolitan Books, 2006), [2] [3] won the Franco-British Society Literary Prize (2006), [4] was shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize (2006), long-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize (2007) and was listed among the 100 Best Books of the Decade in The Times in 2009. [5] It has been translated into five languages.

Her second book, John Aubrey: My Own Life (Chatto & Windus, 2015; New York Review of Books, 2016), [6] was shortlisted for the 2015 Costa Biography Award [7] and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

Her third book, Napoleon: A Life in Gardens and Shadows (Chatto & Windus, 2021; Norton, 2021), was published to critical acclaim [8] on both sides of the Atlantic [9] to mark the 200th anniversary of Napoleon's death. It won the Society for Military History Distinguished Book Award for Biography (2022). [10]

Career

Scurr began reviewing regularly for The Times and The Times Literary Supplement in 1997. [11] Since then she has also written for The Daily Telegraph , [12] The Observer , New Statesman , [13] The London Review of Books , [14] The New York Review of Books , The Nation , [15] The New York Observer , The Guardian [16] and The Wall Street Journal . [17]

She was a judge on the Man Booker Prize panel in 2007, the Samuel Johnson Prize panel in 2014, and the Baillie Gifford Prize panel in 2023. [18] [19] [20] She is a member of the Folio Prize Academy. [21]

Scurr is Director of Studies in Human, Social and Political Sciences for Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where she has been a Fellow since 2006. Her research interests include: 17th- and 18th-century history of ideas; biographical, autobiographical and life writing; the British and French Enlightenments; the French Revolution; Revolutionary Memoir; early Feminist Political Thought; and contemporary fiction in English. [22] Scurr is the Senior Treasurer of a Cambridge-based publication, Per Capita Media. [23] [24]

Having served on the Council since 2020, Scurr became acting Chair of the council of the Royal Society of Literature in January, 2025. [25]

Bibliography

Books

Dissertations, theses

Critical studies and reviews

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Dr Ruth Scurr". Gonville & Caius. February 2013. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
  2. ↑ Behr, Rafael (7 May 2006). "What a fully fledged head case". The Observer. ISSN   0029-7712 . Retrieved 30 January 2025.
  3. ↑ Gilmour, David (7 May 2006). "Liberty, Equality, Fratricide". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 30 January 2025.
  4. ↑ "Literary Award". FRANCO-BRITISH SOCIETY. Retrieved 30 January 2025.
  5. ↑ "The Times Online 100 Best Books of the Decade (2000-2009) (113 books)". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
  6. ↑ Lezard, Nicholas (5 April 2016). "John Aubrey: My Own Life by Ruth Scurr review – a 'diary' to rival Pepys's". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 30 January 2025.
  7. ↑ "The Costa category shortlists 2015 – in pictures". the Guardian. 17 November 2015. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 30 January 2025.
  8. ↑ Schama, Simon (25 May 2021). "Simon Schama on Napoleon, the horticultural strategist". www.ft.com. Retrieved 30 January 2025.
  9. ↑ Irmscher, Christoph (18 June 2021). "'Napoleon' Review: The General's Garden". Wall Street Journal. ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved 30 January 2025.
  10. ↑ |website=www.smh-hq.org/awards/books.html|
  11. ↑ "Ruth Scurr | Search | TLS". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.
  12. ↑ "All articles by Ruth Scurr - journalisted.com". Archived from the original on 15 March 2014.
  13. ↑ "NS Library - Ruth Scurr". Archived from the original on 21 November 2006.
  14. ↑ "Ruth Scurr · LRB". lrb.co.uk. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
  15. ↑ "Ruth Scurr". thenation.com. 2 April 2010. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
  16. ↑ "Ruth Scurr". theguardian.com. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
  17. ↑ Scurr, Ruth (7 March 2014). "Book Review: 'Whistler' by Daniel e. Sutherland". Wall Street Journal.
  18. ↑ "Ruth Scurr | The Man Booker Prizes". Archived from the original on 22 September 2012.
  19. ↑ "Ruth Scurr". The Times. 15 June 2007. Retrieved 30 December 2010.
  20. ↑ "Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction 2007, BBC FOUR, The UK's most Prestigious non-fiction award, The UK's richest non-fiction prize". Archived from the original on 15 December 2007.
  21. ↑ "The Rathbones Folio Prize | the Rathbones Folio Prize" . Retrieved 19 December 2022.
  22. ↑ "Dr Ruth Scurr | Gonville & Caius". www.cai.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 30 January 2025.
  23. ↑ "Per Capita Media" . Retrieved 3 January 2024.
  24. ↑ "Per Capita Media" . Retrieved 10 January 2024.
  25. ↑ Sanderson, David (18 January 2025). "Royal Society of Literature moves on from diversity and censorship row". www.thetimes.com. Retrieved 30 January 2025.
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