Peter Stothard

Sir Peter Stothard (born 28 February 1951) is a British newspaper editor, classicist and author. He currently edits The Times Literary Supplement, and edited The Times from 1992 to 2002.

He was the son of Max Stothard, an electrical engineer who worked at the Marconi Research Centre, Great Baddow. He grew up on the nearby Rothmans Estate. He was educated at Brentwood School, Essex (1962–68) and Trinity College, Oxford, where he became editor of Oxford University student newspaper Cherwell, after which he joined the BBC and wrote for the New Statesman, New Society and Plays and Players. He joined The Sunday Times in 1978 and The Times in 1981 where he was chief leader writer, deputy editor and US editor, based in Washington. He was knighted for services to the newspaper industry in 2003. He published Thirty Days: An Inside Account of Tony Blair at War (HarperCollins, 2010, ISBN 978-0-06-058262-3) in 2004 which was based on observations inside Downing Street during the Iraq War.

During Stothard's editorship, The Times reached a circulation of more than 900,000 - the highest in its history. This was, in part, the result of the so-called 'price war' which started in 1993 when The Times reduced its cover price and started intense circulation battles against The Daily Telegraph and The Independent. Under the ownership of News International, led by Rupert Murdoch, The Times had identified the Telegraph rather than The Guardian as its main rival while The Independent was at first a serious challenger to The Times. One enduring result of the price war was a significant narrowing of the gap between The Times and Daily Telegraph and a widening of the gap with The Independent.

In 1999 he became involved in a controversial legal dispute over political funding with the Conservative Party Treasurer, Michael Ashcroft. Lord Ashcroft sued but subsequently withdrew his suit after a statement agreed by both parties.

Stothard was named as Editor of the Year in the same year by Granada TV's What the Papers Say.

In 2000 he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and was away from The Times for ten months for successful treatment.

Since becoming editor of The Times Literary Supplement he has written mainly on Greek and Roman literature. In 2013 he was awarded the President’s Medal of the British Academy for services to the humanities.

In 2010 his first book of memoir On the Spartacus Road (HarperPress, 2011, 978-0-00-734084) combined an account of the Spartacus uprising with elements of autobiography. His second, Alexandria, The Last Nights of Cleopatra (Granta, 2012, 978-1-84708-703-5), extended the same form, including accounts of newspaper life alongside the story of his engagement with Greece, Rome and Egypt. Alexandria won the 2013 Criticos Prize for literature on themes from ancient or modern Greece.

He was chairman of judges for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction (2012) and President of the Classical Association.

He is married to the novelist and travel writer Sally Emerson and has a son, Michael (born 1987), and a daughter, the novelist Anna Stothard (born 1983).

Stothard appears as a character briefly in the first scene of a one-level Tomb Raider expansion videogame made by Core Design in association with The Times. The expansion is called Times Exclusive Level and was released in 2000.

Bibliography

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Book reviews

Date	Review article	Work(s) reviewed
2011

External links

• Debrett's People of Today

Media offices
Preceded by Charles Wilson	Deputy Editor of The Times 1986–1992	Succeeded by John Bryant
Preceded by Simon Jenkins	Editor of The Times 1992-2002	Succeeded by Robert Thomson