William
McGuire "Bill" Bryson (born December 8, 1951)
is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books
on the English language and on science. Born an American, he was a resident of
Britain for most of his adult life before returning to the US in 1995. In 2003
Bryson moved back to Britain, living in the old rectory of Wramplingham, Norfolk, and was appointed Chancellor of Durham University.
Bill
Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, the son of William and Mary
Bryson. (In 2006 Bryson published The Life and
Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, a humorous account of his
childhood years in Des Moines.) His mother was of Irish stock. He has an older brother, Michael and a
sister, Mary Jane Elizabeth.
Bryson
attended Drake University for
two years before dropping out in 1972, deciding to instead backpack around
Europe for four months. He returned to Europe the following year with a high
school friend, the pseudonymous Stephen Katz. Some of his experiences from this
trip are relived as flashbacks in Neither Here
Nor There: Travels in Europe, which documents a similar
journey Bryson made twenty years later.
Bryson first visited Britain in
1973 during a tour of Europe and decided to stay after landing a job working in
a psychiatric hospital – the now defunct Holloway Sanatorium in Virginia Water, Surrey.
He met a nurse there named Cynthia, whom he married and they moved to the USA
in 1975 so that Bryson could complete his college degree. In 1977, they settled
in Britain, where they remained until 1995. Eventually living in North Yorkshire and
mainly working as a journalist, Bryson became chief copy editor of the business
section of The Times and
then deputy national news editor of the business section of The Independent. He left journalism in 1987, three
years after the birth of his third child. Living in Kirkby Malham, North Yorkshire, Bryson started writing
independently and in 1990 their fourth child, Samuel, was born.
Although
able to apply for British citizenship, Bryson has declined a
citizenship test, declaring himself "too cowardly" to take it.
In 1995, Bryson returned to the
United States to live in Hanover, New Hampshire, for some years,
the stories of which feature in his book I'm A Stranger Here Myself,
alternatively titled Notes from a Big Country in Britain, Canada and Australia.
During his time in the United States, Bryson decided to walk the Appalachian Trail with
his friend Stephen Katz (a pseudonym), about which he wrote the book A Walk in the Woods. In 2003 the
Brysons and their four children returned to Britain and now live in Norfolk.
Also
in 2003, in conjunction with World Book
Day, British voters chose Bryson's book Notes from a
Small Island as
that which best sums up British identity and the state of the nation. In the
same year, he was appointed a Commissioner for English Heritage.
In
2004, Bryson won the prestigious Aventis Prize for best general science book with A Short
History of Nearly Everything. This 500-page popular literature piece
explores not only the histories and current statuses of the sciences, but also
reveals their humble and often humorous beginnings. Although one "top
scientist" is alleged to have jokingly described the book as "annoyingly
free of mistakes",
Bryson himself makes no such claim and a list of some reported
errors in the book is
available online. In 2005, the book won the EU Descartes Prize for
science communication.
Bryson
has also written two popular works on the history of the English language — Mother Tongue and Made in America — and, more recently, an update of his
guide to usage, Bryson's
Dictionary of Troublesome Words (published in its first edition as The
Penguin Dictionary of Troublesome Wordsin 1983). These books were
popularly acclaimed and well-reviewed, though they received some criticism
claiming that they contained factual errors, urban myths and folk etymologies.
Works
book
The Penguin Dictionary of Troublesome Words
The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way
Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors
novel
The Palace under the Alps and Over 200 Other Unusual, Unspoiled and Infrequently Visited Spots in 16 European Countries
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America
Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe
Notes from a Small Island
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail