Neil Hanson has crammed an awful lot of living into just one life. Since graduating from Oxford University, he has travelled around the world twice; been a plasterer's mate, an ice cream salesman and a holiday camp redcoat. He worked in a number of art and photography galleries; was simultaneously an art critic and a rugby league commentator; the editor of the Good Beer Guide; the owner of the highest pub in England; a book reviewer, travel writer and critic; and a radio broadcaster for the BBC and for independent radio networks in Australia and New Zealand. He has written for every British national newspaper and for media around the world, made guest appearances on everything from BBC Television's flagship news program to Australia's top-rated radio show and NBC's Today Show. He is also a highly successful lecturer and after-dinner speaker and has written forty published novels and non-fiction books under a variety of noms de plume, plus a couple of screenplays, a playscript for a musical and a series of short stories. He was appointed to a Fellowship of the Royal Literary Fund in 2007. Neil is also the author of an acclaimed series of popular histories: The Custom of the Sea; The Dreadful Judgement; The Confident Hope of a Miracle; The Unknown Soldier; First Blitz; Monk Eastman; and Escape From Germany. Critics around the world have hailed them as "brilliant", "compelling", and "a triumph". He lives in the Yorkshire Dales with his wife and family.