Matthew Engel

Matthew Lewis Engel (born 11 June 1951)^[1] is a British writer, journalist and editor.

Engel was born in Northampton, son of solicitor Max David Engel (1912-2005) and Betty Ruth (née Lesser).^[2][3] His grandfather had escaped anti-Semitic persecution in Poland.^[4]

He was educated at Great Houghton Prep School, Carmel College, Oxfordshire, and Manchester University.^[5]

He began his career in 1972 as a staff journalist on The Guardian newspaper for nearly 25 years, reporting on a wide range of political and sporting events including a period as Washington correspondent beginning on 9/11. He later wrote columns in the Financial Times and now contributes to both these papers. Engel edited the 1993–2000 and 2004–2007 editions of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, with a short break when he worked in the US. He has been a strong critic of the International Cricket Council, international cricket's ruling body.

Engel was the visiting professor of media at the University of Oxford for 2011.^[6]

He was elected as a councillor for Herefordshire in October 2023 in a by-election for Golden Valley South ward.^[7][8]

Engel lives on an old farm in Herefordshire. In 1990, he married former editorial director at Pan Books Hilary, daughter of Laurence Davies.^[9] They had a son, Laurie, and adopted a daughter, Victoria (Vika), from Russia.^[10][11] Laurie died of cancer in 2005, aged 13, and Engel set up a successful charity fund in his memory, the Laurie Engel Fund, which has raised more than £1.2m in partnership with the Teenage Cancer Trust to build a new unit for patients in Birmingham (opened 2010) and for a cancer centre scheduled for 2018. The proceeds of a book he wrote, Extracts from the Red Notebooks (Macmillan), are donated to this fund. His book, That’s The Way It Crumbles: The American Conquest of the English Language (Profile Books) was published in June 2017.

• The Reign - Life in Elizabeth's Britain: Part I: The Way It Was, 1952-79 (Atlantic Books, 2022) ISBN 978-1-786-49667-6
• That’s The Way It Crumbles: The American Conquest of the English Language (Profile Books, 2017) ISBN 978-1-78125-668-8
• Engel's England: thirty-nine counties, one capital and one man (Profile Books, 2014) ISBN 978-1-84668-571-2
• Eleven Minutes Late: A Train Journey to the Soul of Britain (Macmillan, May 2009) ISBN 978-0-230-70898-3
• Extracts from the Red Notebooks (Macmillan, 2007) ISBN 978-0-330-44954-0 and his Financial Times column about it
• The Bedside Years: The Best Writing from the Guardian 1951–2000 (Atlantic, 2001) ASIN B000Y11LQW
• Tickle The Public: One Hundred Years of the Popular Press (Orion, 1996) ISBN 978-0-575-06143-9, paperback (Phoenix, 1997) ISBN 978-0-575-40083-2
• Thirty Obituaries from Wisden (editor) (Penguin Books Ltd, 1996) ISBN 978-0-14-600248-9
• The History of Northamptonshire CCC (County Cricket History) (with Andrew Radd) (Christopher Helm Publishers Ltd, 1993) ISBN 978-0-7136-8024-9
• Sports writer's eye: an anthology (Queen Anne Press, 1989) ISBN 978-0-356-17844-8
• The Guardian Book of Cricket (Pavilion Books, 1986) ISBN 978-1-85145-060-2 (Penguin Books, 1987) ISBN 978-0-14-010445-5
• Ashes '85 Pelham Books, 1985) ISBN 978-0-7207-1645-0
• Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (editor) (John Wisden & Co Ltd)
  • 2007 ISBN 978-1-905625-02-4, paperback ISBN 978-1-905625-03-1, large print ISBN 978-1-905625-05-5
  • 2006 ISBN 978-0-947766-98-6, paperback ISBN 978-0-947766-99-3
  • 2005 ISBN 978-0-947766-89-4, paperback ISBN 978-0-947766-90-0
  • 2004 ISBN 978-0-947766-83-2, paperback ISBN 978-0-947766-84-9, audio ISBN 978-1-84032-857-8
  • 2000/The Millennium Edition ISBN 978-0-947766-57-3, paperback ISBN 978-0-947766-58-0
  • 1999 ISBN 978-0-947766-50-4, paperback ISBN 978-0-947766-51-1
  • 1998 ISBN 978-0-947766-44-3, paperback ISBN 978-0-947766-45-0
  • 1997 ISBN 978-0-947766-38-2, paperback ISBN 978-0-947766-39-9
  • 1996 ISBN 978-0-947766-31-3, paperback ISBN 978-0-947766-32-0
  • 1995 ISBN 978-0-947766-24-5, paperback ISBN 978-0-947766-25-2
  • 1994 ISBN 978-0-947766-22-1, paperback ISBN 978-0-947766-23-8
  • 1993 ISBN 978-0-947766-20-7, paperback ISBN 978-0-947766-21-4
• The Sportspages Almanac: Complete Sporting Factbook (with Ian Morrison) (Simon & Schuster Ltd)
  • 1992 ISBN 978-0-671-71080-4
  • 1991 ISBN 978-0-671-71600-4
  • 1990 ISBN 978-0-671-65314-9

Wikiquote has quotations related to Matthew Engel.

• Official website
• Column archive at The Financial Times
• Column archive at The Guardian
• Author profile at PanMacmillan
• The Laurie Engel Fund official website