I was born in Hampshire in 1945 and spent my childhood in Gosport, and then in Alsager in Cheshire. I read English at Magdalene College, Cambridge and during my third year married Jo. We have two children, William and Helen.
I did a PhD on the social thinking of the New England Transcendentalists at Exeter University, and spent two years as an American Council of Learned Societies Fellow at Harvard (much later that research became the basis for my book Transcendental Utopias).
When we came back to the UK I took up a post as lecturer in American literature at Manchester University, and we lived in Stockport for many years, the setting for a number of my novels (though I sometimes call it Costford). My first novel, Blackpool Vanishes, was published in 1979. So far I have published eleven novels and four books of non-fiction.
We lived in Shropshire for three years (I commuted to Manchester), spent a year in Libya (I taught at the University of Tripoli while on unpaid leave from Manchester) and another in the States (where I was an exchange professor at the University of Missouri).
During my time at Missouri I had the chance to do some creative writing teaching and when I returned to the American Studies department at Manchester University in the late eighties, I began giving undergraduate workshops in tandem with the poet and publisher Michael Schmidt, who lectured in the English department. In 1993 we set up an MA in Novel Writing. From 1999 to 2009 I was Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, where I taught on the MA and supervised PhDs in creative writing. I am now Emeritus Professor there.
I alternate between writing novels and non-fiction (biographies and works about the history of American culture). I have also written for TV and radio and been a regular contributor to, and presenter of, arts programmes on Radio 3 and 4.
Jo works with me on the research for my non-fiction books, and also writes poetry. We live in Bath and spend as much time as we can in our house in southwest France. Our son William is a literary agent with Janklow and Nesbit in London. Our daughter Helen has long and wide-ranging experience of publishing and together we run an MS editing and mentoring company: https://www.francisliteraryconsultants.co.uk/. My brother Matthew is a poet, novelist and critic, whose most recent collection, Wing, was published by Faber in February 2020.
I have received awards to assist me in my writing from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Arts Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Board, and the British Academy. Most recently I have held a Hodson-Brown Fellowship, enabling me to do research at the John Carter Brown Library of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and to work on my novel, Crane Pond, at the Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. In 2011 my book The Old Spring was voted Best Foreign Novel of the Year by the Chinese Association of Foreign Literature. Crane Pond was long-listed for the Walter Scott Prize in 2017.
I am delighted to be reunited with my brilliant former editor, Christopher Potter, for the publication of my most recent novel, Laura Laura.
This page has the following sub pages.
Richard: I jsut stumbled on you. Our website is down because of defunct supplier but we will be up soon., http://www.globalprovince.com thought i should tell you about Richard Lee Francis who taught at Brown and Western Washington whatever. His field was American Studies particularly literature. And he is an architecture bug and will be out somewhere with something called “The Place of Architecture.” thougth this would bemuse you
Funnily enough Richard Lee Francis and I both contributed to Studies in the American Renaissance in the 1970s. In fact I think he was one of the editors. So in my novel writing career I had a rival called Dick Francis, and in my non-fiction career I had Richard Lee! I haven’t tried your website yet but will shortly. Many thanks for writing!
Best,
Richard
Good morning, just discovered your writing via a radio 4 extra programme on style with Matthew parris from 2002 & was greatly cheered by your description of eating mussels while at lunch with a new literary editor – just exquisite writing & I am looking forward to getting to know your Stockport novels as I grew up in (although am not from) Lancashire and now live outside Bath. My son is currently studying eng lit at Manchester uni. What a shame he was too late to have had the opportunity to take one of your modules…. with very best wishes, and thanks, beth
Dear Beth – sorry to take so long to reply. I have only just re-entered my blog in order to update it (my latest novel has just been bought). Yes, avoid mussels when having a power lunch! I hope you have enjoyed, or will enjoy, my Stockport novels. My new one is set in Bath, so that may ring a bell too. Good luck to your son at Manchester University.
Hi Richard, Eleanor Smith here from Spain. I am sorry we have lost touch with you and Jo and just wanted to re-establish it if you have time and would like to. I am very tempted by two of your non-fiction books, the one on the Alcott family et al, and the one on Judge Sewell. Think I will request them for my birthday in March. Glad to see that you are so prolific and successful. We continue to be very happy living in Spain and not in Brexit Britain. All best wishes to you both, Eleanor
It’s been a while since I entered my website, as you can see! So glad you are (were?) both OK. As are we. We live in Halesworth in Suffolk now – very happily (despite Brexit and other political woes). We see Nick and Rosemary from time to time. Cheers!