Ted Hughes’ widow criticises ‘offensive’ biography

Carol Hughes says unauthorised biography by Jonathan Bate, shortlisted for Samuel Johnson prize, is riddled with factual errors

Ted Hughes’s widow has described a new unauthorised biography of the late poet laureate as being riddled with factual errors, just days after the work was nominated for the Samuel Johnson prize.

In a letter to the book’s author, Jonathan Bate, who is a professor of English literature at Oxford University, and to its publisher HarperCollins, a solicitor for the Hughes estate said Hughes’ widow, Carol, found the mistakes offensive and disrespectful to her husband’s memory.