Richard Hamblyn

Richard Hamblyn (born 1965) is a British environmental writer and historian. He is a lecturer in the Department of English, Theatre and Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London,[1] and has contributed to the Sunday Times, The Guardian, the Independent, the Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books.[2]

His books include The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies (2001, Picador, ISBN 978-0330391955), an account of the life and work of Luke Howard which won a 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Prize[3] and was shortlisted for the 2002 Samuel Johnson Prize;[4][5] Terra: Tales of the Earth (2009, Picador, ISBN 978-0330490733), a study of natural disasters, a BBC Wales Science Book of the Year;[6] and an anthology of science writing, The Art of Science: a Natural History of Ideas (2011, Picador, ISBN 978-0330490764).[7] He has also written four illustrated books on weather in association with the UK Met Office, including The Cloud Book (2008, ISBN 978-07153-28088); Extraordinary Clouds (2009, ISBN 978-07153-32818); and Extraordinary Weather (2012, ISBN 978-14463-01913), and edited Daniel Defoe's first book, The Storm (1704) for Penguin Classics (2005, ISBN 978-0141-43992-1). Works written in collaboration with the British landscape photographer Jem Southam include Clouds Descending (2009) and The River in Winter (2012).

In the academic year 2008–09 Hamblyn was writer-in-residence at the University College London Environment Institute, and produced the book Data Soliloquies (Slade Press, 2009, ISBN 9780903305044) with Martin John Callanan who was artist-in-residence for the same year.[8]