Elected: 2022
Nicola Beauman read English at Cambridge and afterwards was a book reviewer and worked in publishing. She has written A Very Great Profession (1983) about inter-war women writers, and biographies of Lady Cynthia Asquith (1987), EM Forster (1993) and the novelist Elizabeth Taylor (2009). In 1998 she founded Persephone Books in order to reprint (mostly) women writers; there are now 143 books in print. She has received an OBE for her contributions to publishing.
Fellows are nominated by peers and elected by our Council of writers – our governing Board. Being elected a Fellow of the RSL is a lifetime honour. This role gives them the opportunity to support other writers, readers and the future of literature. The RSL connects writers in the Fellowship to one another, and to a wider readership.
