Conn Iggulden

Background

Born in 1971 to an English father and Irish mother (whose grandfather was a seanchaí), he attended St Martins School in Northwood before moving on to Merchant Taylors' School. He studied English at the University of London, and went on to teach the subject for seven years, becoming head of the English department at Haydon School, where one of his students was Fearne Cotton. He eventually left teaching to write his first novel, The Gates of Rome. He is married, has four children and lives in Hertfordshire, England.

In August 2014, Iggulden was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.

Historical fiction

Iggulden's debut book was The Gates of Rome, the first in a currently five-part series entitled Emperor. The series is based around the life of Julius Caesar, from childhood (The Gates of Rome) to his eventual betrayal and death (The Gods of War). The film option has been sold to Spitfire Productions (an Intermedia company).

The author has written a fifth book in the series, Emperor: The Blood of Gods, which deals with the rise of Augustus and events after the end of The Gods of War. This book was published on 26 September 2013.

After completing the fourth book in the Emperor series, Iggulden began research for his next series of books, the Conqueror series, based on the life of Mongol warlords Genghis, Ogedai and Kublai Khan. His first book was available from 2007. Bones of the Hills, the third in the series, was released on 1 September 2008. In September 2010 Empire of Silver was released, which revolves around the life of Genghis Khan's son, Ogedai. Whilst Iggulden had initially confirmed on his official website that he would be writing two more books after Empire of Silver on Kublai Khan, the author's note at the end of Conqueror states that it would be the last in the series. Iggulden explains his desire to leave the character when he still had much left to accomplish, rather than tracing him through to his eventual downfall, as he did with Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan.

Iggulden released the book Stormbird in 2013 as the first of four books in the Wars of the Roses series.

Children's books

Iggulden co-wrote a book with his brother Hal, The Dangerous Book for Boys. It covers around eighty topics, from building a soapbox racer and tying knots, to learning about famous battles and how to make potassium aluminium sulphate crystals. It was released in the UK in June 2006, reprinted a month later and was voted British Book of the Year at the Galaxy British Book Awards.

On September 2009 he wrote a children's book Tollins: Explosive Tales for Children through HarperCollins. Iggulden has since written three stories to accompany the story of the Tollins.

Other works

In March 2006, Iggulden released a novelette entitled Blackwater, part of the Quick Reads initiative of World Book Day 2006. Being a thriller, Blackwater was a change in genre for Iggulden who had mainly written historical fiction.

In 2012 Iggulden added a further quickreads book to the list Quantum of Tweed – The Man with a Nissan Micra – a comedy about an unwitting hitman.

Emperor series film adaptation

In 2010, there was media coverage toward a proposed epic film Emperor: Young Caesar to be about the early life of Julius Caesar covering the years from 92 BC to 71 BC and based on the first two novels of Iggulden's Emperor series, The Gates of Rome and The Death of Kings. Exclusive Media Group hired Burr Steers to direct after they had an adaptation penned by William Broyles and Stephen Harrigan.