Adam Sisman is an award-winning writer, editor, historian and consultant, specializing in biography.

His latest work, The Indefatigable Asa Briggs, is a companion to his two earlier full-length biographies of the historians A.J.P. Taylor and Hugh Trevor-Roper: in each case the first books on their subjects, based on extensive archival research. The Secret Life of John le Carré appeared in 2023, a coda to his definitive biography, published in 2015. He has also written a study of literary collaboration, The Friendship: Wordsworth and Coleridge; and the story of the first and arguably the greatest of all biographies, Boswell’s Presumptuous Task. In 2019 he produced a short account of Hugh Trevor-Roper’s pursuit of a con man, The Professor and the Parson. Adam’s books have often been shortlisted for prizes, and Boswell’s Presumptuous Task was awarded the US National Books Critics Circle prize for biography.

Besides these, Adam has edited two volumes of letters of Patrick Leigh Fermor, and co-edited a volume of letters of Hugh Trevor-Roper.

The Indefatigable Asa Briggs

Published in the U K HarperCollins

“Intriguing…. There is a haunting quality to this biography, especially for anyone who writes. One day, it reminds us, we too will be forgotten.” William Whyte, Literary Review

“Superb…compelling…. Sisman Is ideally suited to the job. He’s a writer highly attuned to the niceties, sensitivities and, indeed, hypocrisies of the British class system and of academic life, a complex terrain that he traverses smoothly.” Ian Sansom, Daily Telegraph

“Sisman acquits himself well.” Mark Bostridge, Spectator