Richard Hamblyn

Richard Hamblyn (born 1965) 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 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 (2001), 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 (2009), 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 (2011). He has also written four illustrated books on weather in association with the UK Met Office, including The Cloud Book (2008); Extraordinary Clouds (2009); and Extraordinary Weather (2012), and edited Daniel Defoe's first book, The Storm (1704) for Penguin Classics (2005). Works written in collaboration with the British landscape photographer Jem Southam include Clouds Descending (2009) and The River in Winter (2012).

In the academic year 2008–09 Hamblyn was writer-in-residence at the University College London Environment Institute, and produced the book Data Soliloquies (Slade, 2009) with Martin John Callanan who was artist-in-residence for the same year.

Publications

Books by Hamblyn

• The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies (2001, Picador, ISBN 978-0330391955).
• Terra: Tales of the Earth (2009, Picador, ISBN 978-0330490733)
• Extraordinary Clouds (2009, ISBN 978-07153-32818).
• The Art of Science: a Natural History of Ideas (2011, Picador, ISBN 978-0330490764)
• Extraordinary Weather (2012, ISBN 978-14463-01913).
• The Cloud Book (2008, revised edition 2021 ISBN 978-14463-08905)

Books edited by Hamblyn

• The Storm by Daniel Defoe (1704) for Penguin Classics (2005, ISBN 978-0141-43992-1)

Other publications by Hamblyn

• "The British Audiences for Volcanoes", in Transports: Travel, Pleasure and Imaginative Geography 1600–1830, ed. Chlöe Chard and Helen Langdon (Yale University Press, 1996)
• The Invention of Clouds (Picador, 2001)
• Literature & Science, 1660–1834, vol 3: 'Earthly Powers', ed. (Pickering & Chatto, 2003: one of an 8-volume series of edited anthologies of science-themed writing from the long eighteenth century
• The Cloud Book: How to Understand the Skies (D&C/Met Office, 2008; revised and updated edition, 2021)
• "Notes from Underground: Lisbon after the Earthquake", Romanticism 14:2 (2008)
• Terra: Tales of the Earth (Picador, 2009)
• Extraordinary Clouds (D&C/Met Office, 2009)
• Data Soliloquies (with Martin John Callanan) (Slade, 2009)
• "Something to be Clever About", in A Book of King's, ed. Karl Sabbagh (Third Millennium, 2010)
• Supercell (with Kevin Erskine) (Hatje Cantz, 2011)
• "Of Exactitude in Science", in Future Climate Change, ed. Mark Maslin and Samuel Randalls (Routledge, 2011)
• Extraordinary Weather (D&C/Met Office, 2012)
• "Winter", in The River Winter, ed. Jem Southam (Mack, 2012)
• The Art of Science: A Natural History of Ideas (Picador, 2012)
• Tsunami: Nature and Culture (Reaktion, 2014)
• Clouds: Nature and Culture (Reaktion, 2017)
• The Sea: Nature and Culture (Reaktion, 2021)
• "Where There Are Waves There Are Stories", The Passenger: Oceano (Iperborea, 2022)
• "Behold.... The Sea!", in BBC Proms Guide 2022 (BBC Publications, 2022)