James King (writer)


James King is a writer and former academic specializing in art history and biography. He is Professor Emeritus of English at McMaster University.

Education

King has a bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto and a MA and PhD from Princeton University.

Career

King taught English literature, creative writing, and art history at McMaster University.

Honours

1980-81: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow
1988-90: Killam Research Fellow
1988: The Yorkshire Post Arts Award: given for 'the finest book devoted to art history published during 1987': awarded for Interior Landscapes: A Life of Paul Nash
1991: Finalist for the Governor General's prize for non-fiction
1993: Elected to the Royal Society of Canada
1995: Virginia Woolf selected one of the best non-fiction books published in the United States during 1995 by Publishers Weekly
1995- : Listing in Who's Who in Canada
1996: Virginia Woolf: Best Book, Hamilton & Region Arts Council
1997: The Life of Margaret Laurence: finalist for CBA Non-Fiction Book of the Year; National Bestseller; Vintage Canada edition: August 1998
1998: The Life of Margaret Laurence: Literary Award for 1997 for Non Fiction Book, Hamilton & Region Arts Council
2011: Étienne's Alphabet shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award
2015: Old Masters shortlisted for the Trillium Award
2016: Inner Places, The Life of David Milne won the Hamilton Literary Award for best non-fiction book

Works

Fiction

Faking. Toronto: The Dundurn Group, 1999. FRENCH translation published by XYZ Montreal in autumn 2001
Blue Moon. Toronto: The Dundurn Group 2000
Transformations. Toronto: Cormorant, 2003
Pure Inventions. Toronto: Cormorant, 2006
Ếtienne's Alphabet. Toronto: Cormorant, 2010
Old Masters. Toronto, Cormorant, 2014

Non-Fiction

William Cowper: A Biography. Durham: Duke University Press, 1986.
Interior Landscapes: A Life of Paul Nash. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987.
The Last Modern: A Life of Herbert Read. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson and New York: St Martin's Press, 1990.
William Blake: His Life. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson and New York: St Martin's Press, 1991. London: Weidenfeld Paperbacks, 1992. New York: St Martin's Press, 1992.
Virginia Woolf. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1994; New York: W.W. Norton, 1995; London: Penguin Books, 1995.
The Life of Margaret Laurence. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 1997; Vintage edition, 1998.
Telling Lives or Telling Lies?: Biography and Fiction. Lethbridge: University of Lethbridge Press, 1997.
Jack, A Life with Writers: The Story of Jack McClelland. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. Vintage: 2000. Chinese translation published in 2002 by Chongqing Publishing House.
Farley: The Life of Farley Mowat. Toronto: Harper Collins Canada, 2002; American edition published by Steerforth Press, 2003.
Japanese Warrior Prints, 1646-1905. Leiden: Hotei, 2007. Co-author with Yuriko Iwakiri.
Beyond the Great Wave: The Japanese Landscape Print, 1727-1960. Bern: Peter Lang: 2010.
Under Foreign Eyes: Western Cinematic Adaptations of Postwar Japan Winchester and Washington: Zero Books: 2011.
Inward Journey: The Life of Lawren Harris. Toronto: Thomas Allen, 2012.
Inner Places: The Life of David Milne. Toronto: Dundurn, 2015.
Roland Penrose: The Life of a Surrealist. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017.
The Way It Is: The Life of Greg Curnoe. Toronto: Dundurn, 2017.
Bertram Brooker: Life and Art. On-line book published October 2018. Toronto: Art Canada Institute, 2018.
Michael Snow: Lives and Works. Toronto: Dundurn, 2019.
Early Snow: Michael Snow 1947-1962. Hamilton and Vancouver: Art Gallery of Hamilton and Figure 1, 2019.
Paul Nash as Designer and Illustrator. London: Lund Humphries, 2022.
E. McKnight Kauffer: The Artist as Designer. New York, Peter Lang, 2025.
'Our Little Gang': The Lives of the Vorticists. London: Reaktion Books, 2025.

Editions

co-editor, The Letters and Prose Writings of William Cowper. Pp. xliii and 598. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979.
co-editor, The Letters and Prose Writings of William Cowper. Pp. xxviii and 652. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981.
co-editor, The Letters and Prose Writings of William Cowper. Pp. xxxiv and 630. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.
co-editor, The Letters and Prose Writings of William Cowper. Pp. xxxiv and 498. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984.
co-editor, The Letters and Prose Writings of William Cowper. Pp. xxvi and 246. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986.
co-editor, William Cowper: Selected Letters. Pp. xxxi and 236. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
Co-editor. Early Voices. Edmonton: Juvenilia Press, 2001.