Isabel Greenberg
Isabel Poppy Greenberg (born 1988) is a British graphic novelist and illustrator.
Her first book, The Encyclopedia of Early Earth, was published in 2013 by Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom;[1] Little, Brown and Company in the United States,[2] and Penguin Random House in Canada.[3] Greenberg also made a short film in 2018 called Janet, Who Fell From The Sea.[4]
Early life
[edit]Born in Camden, London, England, in 1988,[5] Greenberg studied illustration at the University of Brighton School of Art and graduated in 2011.[6]
In 2008, while still a student, Greenberg entered the Observer/Cape/Comica Graphic Short Story Prize and was a runner-up.[7] She entered the competition again in 2011 and won it with "Love in a Very Cold Climate", a love story about a Nord, a North Pole-dweller, and Suit, a South Pole-dweller, who can never touch each other.[6]
Career
[edit]In 2013, Greenberg was one of twenty graphic designers and illustrators to feature in the Memory Palace exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, sponsored by Sky Arts.[8] For the exhibition, an original piece of fiction by Hari Kunzru was transformed into a "walk-in graphic novel."[9]
In 2014, she was commissioned as part of the Pick Me Up Selects contemporary arts festival series at Somerset House.[10]
Greenberg has done work for The Guardian, The New York Times, the National Trust, Seven Stories Press, First Second Books, and Nobrow Press.[11] She has also worked with Chatham Dockyard, Tyntesfield House, and the English Folk Dance and Song Society.[12][13]
Graphic novels
[edit]Greenberg's first graphic novel, The Encyclopedia of Early Earth (2013), is a series of interlinking stories set in Early Earth. Rachel Cooke, reviewing it in The Guardian, said it "already feels like a classic" and compared her to Tove Jansson.[14] It has been translated into German, Spanish, French, and Polish.[15]
In 2016, Greenberg released her second graphic novel, The One Hundred Nights of Hero.[16] A movie adaptation came out in 2025, directed by Julia Jackman and starring Emma Corrin, Maika Monroe, and Nicholas Galitzine.[17][18]
In her graphic novel Glass Town (2020), parts of Brontë family juvenilia are retold and intersect with the lives of four Brontë children — Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne — as they explore the paracosm they created.[19][20] James Smart, for The Guardian, wrote: "Greenberg blurs fiction and memoir: characters walk between worlds and woo their creators. [...] This is a tale, bookended by funerals, about the collision between dreamlike places of possibility and constrained 19th-century lives."[21]
Children's books
[edit]Greenberg has also written and illustrated several children's books, including The Midnight Babies (Abrams Books, 2023) and Time to Go, Sid! (Abrams, 2026).[22][23] She illustrated the book A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars by Seth Fishman, which won the 2018 Mathical Book Prize.[24] Also in 2018, she illustrated Athena: The Story of a Goddess, by her younger sister Imogen Greenberg.[25]
References
[edit]- ^ Armitage, Hugh (1 October 2013). "Isabel Greenberg's Early Earth - review". Digital Spy. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
- ^ Trott, Stephanie (3 February 2014). "Isabel Greenberg: The Encyclopedia of Early Earth • Book Review". Cleaver Magazine. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
- ^ "The Encyclopedia of Early Earth by Isabel Greenberg". Penguin Random House Canada. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
- ^ "Janet, Who Fell From The Sea". Stockholm Experiental & Animation Film Festival. 31 December 2018. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
- ^ "Isabel Poppy Greenberg". England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1916-2007, Camden. Vol. 14. May 1988. p. 185.
- ^ a b Cooke, Rachel (6 November 2011). "The Observer/Cape Graphic Short Story Prize 2011". The Guardian.
- ^ Cooke, Rachel (9 November 2008). "Graphic Short Story Prize". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
- ^ "Sky Arts Ignition: Memory Palace @ V&A". Londonist. 6 June 2013. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
- ^ Wainwright, Oliver (18 June 2013). "Hari Kunzru's Memory Palace creates a 'walk-in' graphic novel at the V&A". The Guardian.
- ^ "Pick Me Up 2014, Somerset House". Aesthetica Magazine. 31 March 2014. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
- ^ "Isabel Greenberg". Manderley Press. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
- ^ "Exclusive Interview: Isabel Greenberg". English Folk Dance and Song Society. 20 October 2014. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
- ^ "Isabel Greenberg - Author: 1+ books, Biography". bestbooks.to. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
- ^ Cooke, Rachel (14 October 2013). "The Encyclopedia of Early Earth by Isabel Greenberg – review". The Guardian.
- ^ "The Encyclopedia of Early Earth: A Graphic Novel by Isabel Greenberg". LibraryThing. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
- ^ Serrao, Nivea (5 December 2016). "'The One Hundred Nights of Hero': EW Review". EW.com. Archived from the original on 18 April 2018.
- ^ Dalton, Ben (8 October 2025). "LFF closing title '100 Nights Of Hero' acquired for UK-Ireland". Screen. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
- ^ Grobar, Matt (9 September 2024). "Nicholas Galitzine Boards '100 Nights Of Hero,' Graphic Novel Adaptation From Director Julia Jackman". Deadline. Retrieved 6 December 2024.
- ^ Puc, Samantha (29 February 2020). "10 New Graphic Novels to Read for Women's History Month". CBR. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
- ^ "Glass Town: The Imaginary World of the Brontës". Publishers Weekly. 14 November 2019. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
- ^ Smart, James (22 February 2020). "Glass Town by Isabel Greenberg review – inside the Brontës' dreamworld". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
- ^ "TIME TO GO, SID!". Kirkus Reviews. 27 September 2025.
- ^ "The Midnight Babies (Hardcover)". ABRAMS. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
- ^ "A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars". Mathical Book Prize. Retrieved 7 June 2021.
- ^ "Athena : the story of a goddess / Imogen and Isabel Greenberg". Reading Borough Libraries. Retrieved 27 March 2026.
