Melvyn Bragg's first novel, FOR WANT OF A NAIL, was published in 1965 and since then his novels have included THE HIRED MAN, for which he won the Time/Life Silver Pen Award, WITHOUT A CITY WALL, winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, CREDO, THE MAID OF BUTTERMERE and THE SOLDIER'S RETURN, which was published to huge critical acclaim in 1999 and won the WHSmith Literary Award. He has also written several works of non-fiction including SPEAK FOR ENGLAND, an oral history of the twentieth century, RICH, a biography of Richard Burton, ON GIANTS' SHOULDERS, a history of science based on his BBC radio series, THE ADVENTURE OF ENGLISH, 12 BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD and SOUTH BANK: THE FINAL CUT. He was born in 1939 and educated at Wigton's Nelson Thomlinson Shool and at Oxford where he read history. He is President of the National Campaign for the Arts, and in 1998 he was made a life peer. He won an Academy Fellowship at the BAFTA Television Awards in 2010.