Richardson, Joanna, 1925-2008

Joanna Leah Richardson (1925-2008) was a prolific biographer, translator, literary critic, and journalist, known for her studies of nineteenth and early twentieth-century French and English authors.

Born on August 8, 1925, in London, England, Joanna Richardson was the daughter of Frederick and Charlotte Richardson. She spent her childhood at Hampstead Garden Suburb and was educated at the Downs School, Seaford, in Sussex. She then studied at St. Anne's College, Oxford, where she read modern languages. After graduation, she worked briefly as a research assistant to the illustrations editor of Chambers's Encyclopaedia, and then became a correspondent for the New English Weekly . She later returned to Oxford to do research under Enid Starkie, a literary critic and biographer of nineteenth-century French poets.

Richardson began her career as a biographer in 1952, with the publication of Fanny Brawne: A Biography, a study of the muse of poet John Keats. Her other biographies and studies of English poets include Edward FitzGerald (1960), The Pre-Eminent Victorian: A Study of Tennyson (1962), The Everlasting Spell: A Study of Keats and His Friends (1963), Edward Lear (1965), and The Life and Letters of John Keats (1981).

In 1958, Richardson published Théophile Gautier: His Life and Times, the first of many biographies of French authors. Her later works included Verlaine (1971), Stendhal (1974), Victor Hugo (1976), Zola (1978), Colette (1983), Judith Gautier (1986), and Baudelaire (1994). In 1989, Richardson was awarded the prestigious Prix Goncourt for biography for Judith Gautier, becoming the first non-French author to receive the award.

In addition to her biographies of authors, Richardson published biographies of historical figures such as Princess Mathilde Bonaparte, George IV, Leopold I of Belgium, and Louis XIV. She translated the poems of Verlaine and Baudelaire into English, as well as Théophile Gautier's Mademoiselle de Maupin . She contributed articles and reviews to numerous newspapers, magazines, and academic journals. She also contributed to BBC radio programs, recording features on literary history and translating plays for the radio from the French.

Richardson was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1959, and she served on the council from 1961 to 1987. She was appointed a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1987. Oxford University awarded her a DLitt several years before her death. Richardson died on March 7, 2008, at age 82. At the time of her death, she was writing a biography of Gustave Flaubert.