Edward Hesketh Gibbons Pearson (February 20 1887 - April 9 1964) was an English actor, theatre director and writer. He is known mainly for his popular biographies; they made him the leading British biographer of his time, in terms of commercial success.

He was born in Hawford , Worcestershire, and educated at Bedford Grammar School. He began acting in 1911, after having travelled in the Americas. During World War I he served in the British Army, in Mesopotamia and elsewhere, being awarded the Military Cross. He returned to the stage after it was over.

In 1926 the anonymously-published Whispering Gallery, purporting to be diary pages from leading political figures, caused him to be prosecuted for attempted fraud. He won the case.

He was a close friend and collaborator of Hugh Kingsmill and of Malcolm Muggeridge; Richard Ingrams' joint biography of the trio, God's Apology: A Chronicle of Three Friends (1977) claims Pearson had an affair with Kitty Muggeridge, at the beginning of the 1940s, when Malcolm was in Washington D.C..

Works

• Modern Men And Mummers (1921)
• A Persian Critic (1923)
• The Whispering Gallery: Leaves from a Diplomat's Diary (1926) fictional diary, published as an anonymous hoax
• Iron Rations (1928) stories
• Doctor Darwin (1930) on Erasmus Darwin
• Ventilations: Being Biographical Asides (1930)
• The Fool of Love. A Life of William Hazlitt (1934)
• The Smith of Smiths, Being The Life, Wit and Humour of Sydney Smith (1934)
• Common Misquotations (1934) editor
• Gilbert and Sullivan: A Biography (1935)
• The Swan of Lichfield being a selection from the correspondence of Anna Seward (1936) editor
• Labby: The Life and Character of Henry Labouchere (1936)
• Tom Paine. Friend of Mankind: a Biography (1937)
• Thinking It Over (1938)
• Skye High: The Record of a Tour through Scotland in the Wake of Samuel Johnson and James Boswell (1938) with Hugh Kingsmill
• This Blessed Plot (1942)
• A Life of Shakespeare: With An Anthology of Shakespeare's Poetry (1942)
• Bernard Shaw : His Life and Personality (1942) also G.B.S. A Full Length Portrait (US)
• Conan Doyle: His Life and Art (1943)
• Oscar Wilde, His Life and Wit (1946)
• Talking of Dick Whittington (1947) with Hugh Kingsmill
• The Hero of Delhi (1948) on John Nicholson
• Dickens, his character, comedy, and career (1949)
• G.B.S. A Postscript (1950)
• The Last Actor-Managers (1950)
• Essays of Oscar Wilde (1950) editor
• Dizzy; the life and personality of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1951)
• The Man Whistler (1952)
• Walter Scott: His Life and Personality (1954)
• Beerbohm Tree: His Life & Laughter (1956)
• Gilbert: His Life and Strife (1957)
• Johnson and Boswell: the Story of Their Lives (1958)
• Merry Monarch, the Life and Likeness of Charles II (1960)
• The Pilgrim Daughters (1961) Marrying Americans (US)
• Lives of the Wits (1962)
• Henry of Navarre (1963)
• Hesketh Pearson, By Himself (1965) autobiography
• Extraordinary People (1965) biographical essays

Reference

• Ingrams, Richard (1977) God's Apology: A Chronicle of Three Friends
• Hunter, Ian (1987) Nothing to Repent : The Life of Hesketh Pearson