Philip Hoare

Who is Philip Hoare?

Philip Hoare is the author of seven works of non-fiction: Serious Pleasures: The Life of Stephen Tennant and Noël Coward: A Biography, Wilde’s Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy, and the First World War, Spike Island: The Memory of a Military Hospital, and England’s Lost Eden: Adventures in a Victorian Utopia. Leviathan or, The Whale, won the 2009 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. He has also written The Sea Inside.

An experienced broadcaster, Hoare wrote and presented the BBC Arena film The Hunt for Moby-Dick, and directed three films for BBC’s Whale Night. He is Visiting Fellow at Southampton University, and Leverhulme Artist-in-residence at the Marine Institute, Plymouth University, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2011. His latest book, The Sea Inside, was published by Fourth Estate in June 2013.

Hoare has been fascinated by cetaceans since early childhood and between 2011-2012, this self-professed 'whale obsession' led him to create the 'Moby Dick Big Read'. The project, curated by Hoare and artist Angela Cockayne, involved the construction of an online audiobook of all 135 chapters of Herman Melville's classic 'Moby Dick; or, the Whale'. The readings were delivered by a multitude of celebrities, including Tilda Swinton, Stephen Fry, Sir David Attenborough, John Waters, Simon Callow and David Cameron, and accompanied by images from contemporary artists such as Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley, George Shaw and Susan Hiller. The readings were uploaded to the 'Moby Dick Big Read' website, with one chapter available for download per day from 16 September 2012. All downloads are free, but donations are invited to 'Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society'.