Daisy Dunn Explained

Daisy Dunn
Birth Place:London
Occupation:Author, classicist
Language:English
Nationality:British
Education:Ibstock Place School, The Lady Eleanor Holles School
Alma Mater:University of Oxford
Years Active:2016-

Daisy Florence Dunn is an English author and classicist.

Early life and education

Daisy Dunn was born in London and attended Ibstock Place School in Southwest London and The Lady Eleanor Holles School in Hampton on an academic scholarship.[1] She graduated in Classics from St Hilda's College, Oxford in 2009, and won a scholarship to study for an MA in the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute, London, specialising in Titian, Venice and Renaissance Europe.[2] [3] She was awarded a PhD from University College London with a thesis exploring ekphrasis in Greek and Latin poetry and sixteenth-century Italian painting.[4] [5] She was long-listed in 2015 for the international Notting Hill Editions Prize for the essay "An Unlikely Friendship".[6]

Career

In 2016 she published her first two books, a biography of the Latin love poet Catullus and a new translation of his poems.[7] [8] The biography, entitled Catullus' Bedspread, received endorsements from Boris Johnson, Robert Harris and Tom Holland and was described as a "superb portrait" in The Sunday Times.[9] Dunn's translation of one of Catullus' expletives resulted in a series of letters in The Times Literary Supplement and an article in The Times.[10] [11] In a 2016 article in The Guardian Simon Schama included Dunn in his list of leading female historians.[12]

Dunn's 2019 dual biography of Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger, In the Shadow of Vesuvius: A Life of Pliny, published as The Shadow of Vesuvius in the US, was a New York Times Editor's Choice, a Waterstones Best History Book of 2019, and a Book of the Year in several publications. Dunn was interviewed ahead of its release by The Sunday Times.[13]

Also in 2019, Dunn published an anthology of ancient stories in English translation, Of Gods and Men: 100 Stories from Ancient Greece and Rome, for which she was interviewed by Paul Ross on TalkRadio.[14] [15] A month later, she released Homer, part of a new "expert" series of Ladybird books.

Dunn is a regular commentator, critic and columnist, writing for The Spectator, The Daily Telegraph and Literary Review, among other publications. She has contributed to BBC Radio 4, the BBC World Service, TalkRadio, BBC.com (Culture)[16] and BBC 2, for which she participated in the 2016 Christmas University Challenge for notable alumni, with her team winning the series. In 2018 and 2019 she presented two short films on Ancient Wisdom for BBC Ideas.[17]

In 2020, Dunn was awarded the Classical Association Prize,[18] which recognises efforts to bring the classics to public attention.[19]

Dunn's sixth book, Not Far From Brideshead: Oxford Between the Wars, a group biography of the classicists Maurice Bowra, E. R. Dodds and Gilbert Murray, was published in March 2022. In The Times, Laura Freeman wrote of Dunn's "gift for making the arcane accessible and the forbidding more friendly" and the book as being "a love letter to learning".[20] It was described by Leo Robson in the New Statesman as "Lucid, agile, juicy, nuanced".[21] It was listed as a book of the year by Waterstones,[22] The Independent, and The Daily Telegraph.

Works

Dunn is the author of:

Notes and References

  1. News: Reading about your school is always a terrible idea. Dunn. Daisy. 14 March 2015. The Spectator. 5 April 2016. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20161220181426/https://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/03/reading-about-your-school-is-always-a-terrible-idea/. 2016-12-20.
  2. Book: Dunn, Daisy. Catullus' Bedspread: The Life of Rome's Most Erotic Poet. HarperCollins. 2016. 978-0007554331. London, England. 312.
  3. Web site: Oxford University Department of Classics. University of Oxford. 5 April 2016.
  4. Book: Dunn, Daisy. Catullus' Bedspread: The Life of Rome's Most Erotic Poet. HarperCollins. 2016. 978-0007554331. London. 312.
  5. Web site: University College London, Department of Greek and Latin. University College London, Department of Greek and Latin. 6 April 2016.
  6. Web site: Notting Hill Editions Essay Prize 2015 longlist. Notting Hill Editions. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20160317014614/http://www.nottinghilleditions.com/essay-prize-2015-longlist. 17 March 2016. 10 April 2016.
  7. News: Boris Johnson and Tatler help author launch her debut books. Madden. Chris. 29 January 2016. Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser. 8 May 2016.
  8. Web site: Daisy Dunn’s book launch party . 22 January 2016. Tatler . 8 May 2016.
  9. News: Hart. Christopher. Catullus' Bedspread by Daisy Dunn and The Poems of Catullus, translated by Daisy Dunn. en. The Times . 2020-05-27. 0140-0460.
  10. News: Letters to the Editor. 12 May 2016. The Times Literary Supplement. 8 May 2016.
  11. News: Feast of Filth. Kidd. Patrick. 12 May 2016. The Times, TMS Diary.
  12. News: 6 February 2016. 'Big Books by blokes about battles': Why is history still written mainly by men?. The Guardian. 8 May 2016.
  13. News: Smith. Julia Llewellyn. Daisy Dunn put a sexed-up Catullus among the pigeons. Now it's Pliny's turn. en. The Times . 2020-05-27. 0140-0460.
  14. Web site: Of Gods and Men: 100 Stories. Daisy Dunn: Author, Historian & Journalist. en-US. 2020-05-28.
  15. Web site: talkRADIO listen again talkRADIO. talkradio.co.uk. 2020-05-28.
  16. Web site: The truth behind Ancient Rome's most controversial woman. BBC.com (Culture). 15 May 2021.
  17. Web site: Five absurd beliefs from the ancient world . 9 January 2019 . BBC Ideas. en. 2020-05-28.
  18. Web site: Daisy Dunn awarded the Classical Association Prize 2020 – Georgina Capel. en-US. 2020-05-27.
  19. Web site: CA Prize-winner 2020: Daisy Dunn. Marshall. Sharon. 2020. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20200921175618/https://classicalassociation.org/CAprize2020.pdf . 21 September 2020 . 28 May 2020.
  20. News: Freeman. Laura. Not Far from Brideshead by Daisy Dunn review — hearties and arties in Oxford’s Arcadia. The Times. 12 March 2022. 26 June 2022. subscription.
  21. News: Robson . Leo . 4 May 2022 . Gilbert Murray: The Oxford Don who made Greek chic . New Statesman . 26 June 2022.
  22. Web site: Skinner . Mark . 14 September 2022 . The Best Books of 2022: Biography . Waterstones.
  23. Web site: In The Shadow of Vesuvius by Daisy Dunn review: an irresistible life of Pliny. Harry Sidebottom. Harry Sidebottom. 5 July 2019. The Telegraph. 4 August 2019.
  24. News: They Were the Renaissance Men of Roman Antiquity. McGrath. Charles. 2019-12-10. The New York Times. 2019-12-11. en-US. 0362-4331.

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