Richard Hamblyn


Richard Hamblyn is a British environmental writer and historian. He is a lecturer in the Department of English, Theatre and Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, and has contributed articles and reviews to the Sunday Times, The Guardian, the Independent, the Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books.
His books include The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies, an account of the life and work of Luke Howard which won a 2001 Los Angeles Times ''Book Prize and was shortlisted for the 2002 Samuel Johnson Prize; Terra: Tales of the Earth, a study of natural disasters, a BBC Wales Science Book of the Year; and an anthology of science writing, The Art of Science: a Natural History of Ideas. He has also written four illustrated books on weather in association with the UK Met Office, including The Cloud Book ; Extraordinary Clouds ; and Extraordinary Weather, and edited Daniel Defoe's first book, The Storm for Penguin Classics ''. Works written in collaboration with the British landscape photographer Jem Southam include Clouds Descending and The River in Winter.
In the academic year 2008–09 Hamblyn was writer-in-residence at the University College London Environment Institute, and produced the book Data Soliloquies with Martin John Callanan who was artist-in-residence for the same year.

Publications

Books by Richard Hamblyn

  • The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies.
  • Terra: Tales of the Earth
  • Extraordinary Clouds.Data Soliloquies The Met Office Pocket Cloud Book
  • The Art of Science: a Natural History of Ideas Supercell
  • Extraordinary Weather.Tsunami: Nature and Culture Clouds: Nature and Culture
  • The Cloud Book: How to Understand the Skies
  • ''The Sea: Nature and Culture''

Other publications by Richard Hamblyn

  • "The British Audiences for Volcanoes", in Transports: Travel, Pleasure and Imaginative Geography 1600–1830, ed. Chlöe Chard and Helen Langdon Literature & Science, 1660–1834, vol 3: 'Earthly Powers', ed., edited for Penguin Classics
  • "A Celestial Journey", Tate Etc, 5
  • "Hurrah For The Dredge", London Review of Books, 27:21
  • "Notes from Underground: Lisbon after the Earthquake", Romanticism, 14:2
  • "On Metal Beach", in Clouds Descending, ed. Jem Southam
  • "The whistleblower and the canary: rhetorical constructions of climate change", Journal of Historical Geography 35:2
  • "Something to be Clever About", in A Book of King's, ed. Karl Sabbagh
  • "Simply Putting on Weight ", London Review of Books, 32:4
  • "Of Exactitude in Science", in Future Climate Change, ed. Mark Maslin and Samuel Randalls
  • "Winter", in The River Winter, ed. Jem Southam
  • "Wilderness With a Cast of Thousands", Times Literary Supplement, 5743
  • "The Krakatoa Sunsets", The Public Domain Review: Selected Essays, ed. Adam Green
  • "Watchers of the Skies", Times Literary Supplement, 5851
  • "Cool Phenomena", Omega Lifetime, 17
  • "Porthmeor Beach", part of Katie Paterson's First There Is A Mountain project, Tate St. Ives
  • "How Much Are They Paying You?", The Mechanics' Institute Review: The Climate Issue, 16
  • "Where There Are Waves There Are Stories", The Passenger: Oceano
  • "Behold.... The Sea!", in BBC Proms Guide 2022
  • "Luke Howard, Namer of Clouds", Weather, 77:11