Jonathan Self

Who is Jonathan Self?

Jonathan Self is a British author and journalist. He is a trustee of the World Land Trust, an environmental charity, and one of the founders of Honey's Real Dog Food, an artisan dog food business. His brother is the novelist and broadcaster Will Self. His father was the academic Peter Self.

He began his career as an advertising copywriter and in 1982 founded Self Direct, a direct-marketing agency. He sold his business in 1993 to have time to raise his three children. His autobiography, Self Abuse, was published in 2001, about which the Guardian wrote, "The brother of the more famous Will ODs in therapy and splurges the results over 247 pages". His The Teenager’s Guide to Money was published in 2007 and Honey’s Natural Feeding Handbook for Dogs in 2012. Self has written extensively for the British media including Country Life, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Mail on Sunday. In 2009 he collaborated with Arabella Lennox-Boyd on Welcome to Dream Acres, a Country Life series about landscape gardening.

In 1982 he was briefly married to the artist Jo Self, who is the mother of his eldest son Nathaniel Self. He also has two children, Jack and Albert Self, by the Australian journalist Perrie Croshaw. On the first day of December 2008, he and Marianne Van Pelt celebrated their marriage in New York City at Grand Central Station, the site of their first meeting. Since then they and her children by her previous marriage, Avery and Laura, have made Drombeg House in Glandore, West Cork, Ireland their family home.