She is the Director of Creative Non-Fiction at the University of East Anglia,[4][5] Hughes' book George Eliot: The Last Victorian was awarded the 1999 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography, and her 2005 biography of Isabella Beeton, The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton was also well-received,[6] and made the long list for the Samuel Johnson Prize.
[7] (Hughes's UEA website stated that the book had made the shortlist, but this turned out not to be true).
Reviewing Mrs Beeton in the UK daily newspaper The Independent, Frances Spalding wrote: "There is seemingly no aspect of Victorian life that Kathryn Hughes cannot assimilate and understand from the inside.
This is living history, in which massive research and impeccable scholarship is handled with invigorating panache".
[3] An occasional presenter of Open Book on BBC Radio 4, she also contributes to the same network's Saturday Review.