Nigel Cawthorne
Nigel Cawthorne
Book credits (selected)
Biography:
Takin's Back My Name – The Confessions of Ike Turner, The Empress of South America (biography of Eliza Lynch, the first lady of Paraguay), Daughter of Heaven (biography of Wu Chou, the only woman to become emperor of China), The Making of Tommy (includes a memoir of The Who), The Making of The Stone Roses, Heroes (includes biographies of all post-World War II VC winners), A Brief Guide to James Bond (includes a biography of Ian Fleming), A Brief Guide to Sherlock Holmes (includes a biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), A Brief History of Robin Hood, The New Look (includes a biography of Christian Dior), House of Horrors (a memoir of Josef and, more importantly, Elisabeth Fritzl), Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, The World's Greatest Royal Scandals, The World's Great Political Scandals, The World's Ten Most Evil Men, The Kings and Queens of England, Sordid Sex Lives, Great Military Commanders, Tyrants and Despots, 911 Exposed, Steps, Another Level, 5ive, B*Witched.
True crime:
Spree Killers, Sex Killers, Killers, the Mammoth Book of Killers at Large, the Mammoth Book of CSI, Underbelly UK: Vigilantes, House of Horrors, The World's Ten Most Evil Men, Black Magic Murders, Satanic Murder, the World's Worst Atrocities, Jack the Ripper's Secret Confession, Australian True Crime, The World's Most Evil Gangsters.
Areas of specialism: third person biography (historical or contemporary), memoir, celebrity, true crime, military.
Nigel Cawthorne is the author of over 80 books and a contributor to some 20 more. He has had huge success with his Sex Lives series, now translated into twenty four languages. Prior to that he was well known for his work on prisoners of war. In 1990, he wrote The Bamboo Cage: The Full Story of American Servicemen Still Held Hostage in Southeast Asia, which the British newspaper Today called "the book America dare not publish". Indeed, it has never been published in the United States and led to Nigel being called to testify to the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, who agreed with his conclusion. In 1993, Nigel published The Iron Cage which shows that 31,000 British prisoners of war held by the Germans in 1945 disappeared into the Soviet Gulags and never returned. The British Ministry of Defence claims that it is still investigating this issue.
Nigel is the author of Daughter of Heaven, the true story of the only woman to ever become Emperor of China, and Reaping the Whirlwind, the story of World War II told using the diaries and letters of ordinary Germans and Japanese soldiers and civilians.
For more controversy, try Takin' Back My Name - The Confessions of Ike Turner or for a flavour of Nigel's more populist writing, there is The New Look - The Dior Revolution, Great Record Labels, The Sixties Source Book, The Winning System, How to Assess Mortgages and Loans, How to Build an Airliner, The Loving Touch, A Century of Shoes, Images of the Cat, World's Greatest Royal Scandals, World's Greatest Political Scandal, World's Greatest Cults, World's Greatest Alien Abductions, World's Worst Atrocities, World's Greatest Serial Killers, 911 Exposed, Steps, Another Level, 5ive and B*Witched.
Nigel has also published a series of military and history books in the UK and US. The first titles were Turning the Tide: Decisive Battles of World War II and Fighting Them on the Beaches: D-Day June 6, 1944. These were followed by Vietnam: A War Lost and Won, Steel Fist, Panzer, A History of the Pirates, Witch Hunt, Shipwrecks, D-Day: Dawn of Heroes, Battles of the Second World War, 100 Tyrants and Despots, 100 Disasters that Shock the World and 100 Great Military Commanders.
Then there is The Empress of South America, the true story of an Irish prostitute who destroyed the wealthiest country in Latin America, killing over a million people in the process and stealing its treasury. She went on to become its national heroine.
Finally, Nigel had a surprise bestseller with Strange Laws of Old England Christmas 2004 and has followed up with Curious Cures of Old England, Amorous Antics of Old England, Sex Secrets of Old England and Beastly Battles of Old England.
Nigel lives in a flat in Bloomsbury which has been described as a book writing factory. He is always open to commissions and, needless to say, can work very quickly.
