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Charles Osborne was born in Brisbane, and started out in musical and literary journalism before branching out into broadcasting and writing books. He continues to write book reviews for the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, and is chief theatre critic for the Daily Telegraph. He is considered an international authority on Opera, and compiled The Dictionary of the Opera (1983), which he continues to revise and update. His other books include guides to the operas of Mozart, Puccini, Strauss and Wagner, and his extensive writing on Verdi has received several awards. He has written a biography of W.H. Auden called The Life of a Poet (1980), which A.L. Rowse called “among the best literary biographies of our time”. A lifelong passion for Agatha Christie’s work prompted him to write The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie (1982), and he has completed novelisations of three of her plays, as well as those of Oscar Wilde.
His career as a broadcaster began at the BBC, and he was Literature Director of the Arts Council for many years. He has been a member of the editorial board of Opera magazine since 1950 and is a regular guest on the Metropolitan Opera quiz. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has served as President of the UK Critics’ Circle. He published a volume of memoirs, Giving It Away: Memoirs of an Uncivil Servant (1983), and recent works include a novel, The Pink Danube (1998), a novelisation of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit (2004), and The Opera Lover’s Companion (2004). His books have been translated into over twenty languages worldwide, and he is currently developing a series call Twenty Operas to See before You Die for Sky Arts. Charles lives and writes in London.
Recent books:
The Opera Lover’s Companion (Yale University Press: 2004)
Blithe Spirit (Methuen: 2004)
The Unexpected Guest (HarperCollins: 2003)
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