Christopher Stocks

Christopher Stocks was born in Yorkshire, studied English at Manchester University and spent many years working for leading magazines in London. His interests run from architecture to perfume, and he has written about everything from the house that inspired Brideshead Revisited to an underground submarine base in Sweden. 

His first book, Forgotten Fruits, a social history of British fruit and veg, became an unlikely success, with Monty Don choosing it as his favourite book of the year. The Book of Pebbles, illustrated by the artist Angie Lewin, was published in hardback in 2019 and paperback in 2020. It went on to be a best-seller, and Thames & Hudson commissioned Christopher and Angie to work together again.

The result was The Book of Wild Flowers, which came out in 2024. House & Garden magazine called it ‘A beautiful little book in every way… Lyrical and eye-catching on the one hand, informative on the other, their work encourages us to look more closely at the nature around us. A treasure of a book.’ Their latest collaboration, The Book of Garden Flowers, was published in March 2025, and is available online and in all good bookshops now.

A perfume collector and trainee bell-ringer, Christopher gardens on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, and shares a birthday with Donny Osmond and Hermione Gingold.