Jacquetta Hawkes Biography

English archaeologist and novelist, born in Cambridge, educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. She worked for UNESCO during 1943–8 and 1964–79. She was particularly well known for her popular books on archaeological topics. Notable among these is A Land (1951, with colour plates by Henry Moore), which she described as ‘the story of the creation of what is at present Britain’; other works in this vein include Archaeology of Jersey (1939), Early Britain (1945), Guide to the Prehistoric Monuments of England and Wales (1951), Man on Earth (1954), The Dawn of the Gods (1968), The First Great Civilizations (1973), and The Shell Guide to British Archaeology (1986). She was married to Christopher Hawkes with whom she wrote Prehistoric Britain (1952), and to J. B. Priestley with whom she collaborated in the play Dragon's Mouth (1952). Her other works include Symbols and Speculations (1948; poems), Fables (1953; stories), King of the Two Lands (1966; novel), A Quest of Love (1980), a semi- autobiographical novel, and Mortimer Wheeler (1982), a biography.