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Francis Hackett
1883–1962
An Irish-born critic, novelist, and biographer, he brought sharp literary judgment and a storyteller’s eye to history. He is especially remembered for his widely read life of Henry VIII and for a career that moved between journalism, criticism, fiction, and biography.
1 Audiobook
The Invisible Censor
by Francis Hackett
About the author
Born in Kilkenny, Ireland, in 1883, Francis Hackett built a varied literary career as a journalist, critic, novelist, and biographer. He left Ireland for the United States as a young man, worked in journalism in Chicago, and became known for serious, lively literary criticism.
Hackett wrote across several genres, but he is best remembered for historical and biographical works, especially Henry the Eighth. Sources also describe him as an important editor and reviewer whose writing connected literature with the social and political questions of his time.
He married the Danish writer Signe Toksvig in 1918, and his life later moved between Ireland, Denmark, and the United States. He died in Virum, Denmark, in 1962, leaving behind work that reflects both a critic’s curiosity and a biographer’s gift for bringing the past to life.