Adam Zamoyski

Born in New York City in 1949, Adam Stefan Zamoyski was brought up in England, first attending St Philip's Preparatory School in South Kensington, London (1957–1962), then completing his secondary education at the Benedictine Downside School (1962–1966) and graduating from The Queen's College, Oxford, where he read History and Modern Languages (1967–1970). He went on to gain an M.A. Honours degree in 1974.[3][4]

Zamoyski first visited Poland in the 1960s. He has dual Polish-British nationality and speaks English, Polish, French, Italian and Russian. His parents, Count Stefan Zamoyski (1904–1976) and Princess Elizabeth Czartoryska (1905–1989), married in 1929 in Gołuchów, Poland, but left their homeland in 1939 soon after its invasion by Germany and Russia. When the Soviets gained control of the country at the end of World War II, they found themselves stranded in the West, eventually settling in London.[4]

Zamoyski lives in London with his wife, the painter Emma Sergeant, whom he married in 2001.[2]

Zamoyski is a freelance historian and author of over a dozen books, including two major best-sellers, his history of Poland, The Polish Way, and his account of Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. Zamoyski's books have been translated into more than a dozen languages.[2][4]

Zamoyski has lectured widely in Europe, the USA and Australia, as well as making regular television and radio appearances.[5] Various debates in which he has taken part are accessible online.[6]

Zamoyski's 2010 book, Chopin. Prince of the Romantics, was serialised as the 'Book of the Week' on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.[5] In The Guardian, Guy Dammann reviewed the biography of Chopin, whom George Sand nicknamed "Chip-Chip". According to Dammann, "Chopin has always been a largely mythical creature. Child prodigy, divinely inspired improviser, poetic genius [...] During his lifetime, his person was thought to partake of something otherworldly; during ours, his grave remains a place of pilgrimage and veneration." Dammann writes that Zamoyski's attempt to demystify Chopin is not wholly successful: while dispassionately chronicling Chopin's human frailty and the Polish influences on his music, the book is still described as a "romantic biography [...] the journey towards death as the apotheosis of genius."[7]

• — (1979). Chopin: A Biography. London: Collins. ISBN 0002160897.[8]
  • — (1980). Chopin: A New Biography (1st USA ed.). Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. ISBN 0385135971.[9]
  • — (2010). Chopin: Prince of the Romantics (revised digital ed.). London: HarperCollins. ISBN 9780007351824.[10]
• — (1981). The Battle for the Marchlands. A history of the 1920 Polish-Soviet War. Boulder: East European Monographs.
• — (1982). Paderewski. A Biography. London: Collins.
• — (1987). The Polish Way: A Thousand-Year History of the Poles and Their Culture. London: John Murray.
• — (1992). The Last King of Poland. London: Jonathan Cape.
• — (1995). The Forgotten Few: The Polish Air Force in the Second World War. London: John Murray.
• — (1999). Holy Madness: Romantics, Patriots and Revolutionaries 1776–1871. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
• — (2001). Poland: A Traveller's Gazetteer. London: John Murray.
• — (2001). The Czartoryski Museum. London: Azimuth Editions.
• — (2004). Moscow 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow. New York: HarperCollins.
• — (2007). Rites of Peace, The fall of Napoleon & the Congress of Vienna. London: HarperCollins.
• — (2008). Warsaw 1920 – Lenin's Failed Conquest of Europe. London: HarperCollins.
• — (2009). Poland: A History. London: HarperPress.[11]
• — (2014). Phantom Terror: The Threat of Revolution and the Repression of Liberty 1789–1848. London: William Collins.
• — (2018). Napoleon. The Man Behind the Myth. London: William Collins.

• Sienkoewewicz, Henryk (1990). Charcoal Sketches and Other Tales. Translated by Adam Zamoyski. London: Angel Books. ISBN 9780946162321.
• — (1992). "The Political Vision of Stanisław Augustus". Exhibition Catalogue: Treasures of a Polish King. London: Dulwich Picture Gallery. ISBN 9780950156460.
• Nine entries by Zamoyski in Grove Art Online, London 1996.
• — (1997). "The Art of the Possible". In Samuel Fiszman (ed.). Constitution and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Poland. The Constitution of 3 May 1791. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253333179.
• — (1999). "The History of Poland in the 16th–18th centuries". In Jan K. Ostrowski (ed.). iLand of the Winged Horsemen. Art in Poland 1572–1764. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300079180.
• From 2003 to 2019 Zamoyski wrote over a dozen articles for The Spectator.[12]
• — (2004). "Napoleon Triumphs in Russia". In Andrew Roberts (ed.). What Might Have Been?: Leading Historians on Twelve 'What Ifs' of History. London: Hachette UK. ISBN 9780297864486.
• — (2009). "Kraków, Renaissaince City of the North". In John Julius Norwich (ed.). The Great Cities in History. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500773581.
• — (2018). Napoleon. All You Need to Know ... London: Connell Publishing. ISBN 9781912568017.

• List of Polish people

• Official website