Hilary Spurling

Susan Hilary Spurling (née Forrest; born 25 December 1940) is a British writer, known for her work as a journalist and biographer.

Hilary Spurling CBE FRSL
Born	Susan Hilary Forrest (1940-12-25) 25 December 1940 (age 84) Stockport, Cheshire, England
Alma mater	Somerville College, Oxford
Occupation	Writer
Spouse	John Spurling ​ (m. 1961)​
Awards	Rose Mary Crawshay Prize Duff Cooper Prize Whitbread Prize James Tait Black Memorial Prize

Early life and education

Born in Stockport, Cheshire,^[1] to circuit judge Gilbert Alexander Forrest (1912–1977)^[2] and teacher Emily Maureen, daughter of Joseph Armstrong, of Fivemiletown, County Tyrone,^[3][4] Spurling was educated at Clifton High School, an independent school in Bristol, South-West England, and then at Somerville College, Oxford.^[5][6]

Career

Spurling won the Whitbread Prize for the second volume of her biography of Henri Matisse in January 2006.^[7]Burying The Bones: Pearl Buck in China was published in March 2010.^[8]

Personal life

In 1961, she married playwright John Spurling.^[6] The couple have three children (Amy, Nathaniel, and Gilbert).^[9]

Works

• Ivy When Young: The Early Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett 1884–1919 (1974)
• Mervyn Peake: Drawings (1974), editor
• Invitation to the Dance: A Handbook to Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time (1977)
• Secrets of a Woman's Heart: The Later Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett 1920–1969 (1984)
• Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book: Elizabethan Country House Cooking (1986)
• Paul Scott: A Life (1990)
• Paper Spirits. Collage Portraits by Vladimir Sulyagin (1992), introduction
• Ivy: The Life of I. Compton-Burnett (1995; combines two volumes originally published separately in 1974 and 1984)
• The Unknown Matisse: Volume 1 – A Life of Henri Matisse 1869–1908 (1998)
• La Grande Thérèse: The Greatest Swindle of the Century (1999) on Thérèse Humbert
• The Girl from the Fiction Department: A Portrait of Sonia Orwell (2002)
• Matisse the Master: The Conquest of Colour 1909–1954 (2005)
• Ann Stokes: Artists' Potter (contributor) (2009)
• Matisse: The Life (abridged version of two earlier works) (2009)
• Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China (2010)
• Anthony Powell: Dancing to the Music of Time (2017)^[10]

Awards

• 1976, Rose Mary Crawshay Prize for Ivy When Young: The Early Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett 1884–1919
• 1984, Duff Cooper Prize for Ivy When Young: The Early Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett 1884–1919
• 2005, Whitbread Book of the Year award for Matisse the Master: The Conquest of Colour 1909–1954
• 2005, elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature^[11]
• 2010, James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography, for Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China^[12]