Christina Hardyment

Christina Hardyment
Born	1946
Nationality	British
Education	Newnham College, Cambridge
Occupation(s)	author, journalist
Spouse	Tom Griffith (1969-1991 div.)
Children	4 daughters
Parents	Eiliv Odde Hauge (father) Dinah Hardyment née McNabb (mother)
Website	www.christinahardyment.co.uk

Christina Hardyment (born 1946) is a British writer who has written on a wide range of subjects including parenting, food, gardens, children's books, domestic life, and British history.

Personal life

Hardyment has lived mainly in England, save for a few years in South Africa, from 1951 to 1953. After completing university, she learned that her father was Norwegian writer and soldier Eiliv Odde Hauge, which led her to contact her Norwegian relatives and establish connections. She married Tom Griffith in 1969. They had four daughters, and ten grandchildren. Though on good terms, they divorced in 1991.

From 1989 to 2000 she was the founder Editor of the University of Oxford's alumni magazine Oxford Today (now edited online as Quod by Richard Lofthouse).

Her two books about Arthur Ransome inspired The Arthur Ransome Society, and she is now the Senior Executor of the Arthur Ransome Literary Estate.

Hardyment is the author of numerous books on social history and literary geography. In 2005, her biography of Sir Thomas Malory, the author of the Morte Darthurwas published by Harper Collins.

Between 2015 and 2018 she edited three literary anthologies on The Pleasures of Gardening, The Pleasures of Nature and The Pleasures of the Table.

Her most recent books are Writing the Thames, published in 2016, which is about the River Thames in literature and history, and Novel Houses: Twenty legendary Literary dwellings', published in 2018.

She is now working on Novel Crimes: Deadly Literary Landscapes from Dartmoor to Cape Wrath and the third of her trilogy of novels about Alyce Chaucer, granddaughter of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer.

She lives in Oxford, revelling in gardening and enjoying sailing and punting on the River Thames.

Works

• 1983: Dream Babies: child care from Locke to Spock London: Cape, reprinted in 2012 as Dream Babies: child care from Locke to Gina Ford, LondonFrancis Lincoln
• 1984: Arthur Ransome and Captain Flint's Trunk London: Jonathan Cape ISBN 0224029894
• 1988: From Mangle to Microwave: the mechanization of household work Cambridge: Polity Press
• 1992: Home Comfort: A History of Domestic Arrangements London: Viking and the National Trust ISBN 0670823651
• 1995: Slice of Life: the British way of Eating Since 1945, London: BBC Books ISBN 0563370874
• 2005: Malory : the knight who became King Arthur's chronicler London: HarperCollins ISBN 9780060935290
• 2010: University of Oxford: The Official Guide, University of Oxford, ISBN 978-0956624406
• 2012: Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands London: British Library ISBN 9780712358743
• 2013: The World of Arthur Ransome: Frances Lincoln,
• 2015: Pleasures of the Table London: British Library
• 2016: Writing the Thames, Bodleian Library ISBN 978-1851244508
• 2018: Novel Houses', Bodleian Library ISBN 978-1851244805
• 2022: 'Alyce Chaucer 1 The Serpent of Division:, Haugetun ISBN 978-1739198015
• 2023: 'Alyce Chaucer 2 The Book of the Duchess:, Haugetun ISBN 978-1739198046