Dawn French Books in Order

If you want her warm, funny novels: A Tiny Bit Marvellous → Oh Dear Silvia → According to Yes → Because of You.
If you're curious about her real life: Dear Fatty → Me. You. A Diary → Me. You. Not a Diary.
If you're here for classic sketch comedy: A Feast of French and Saunders.
If you love craft and knitwear: Big Knits → Great Big Knits.

Dawn French was born in Holyhead, Wales, in 1957, to English parents from Plymouth and an RAF dad whose postings meant the family moved often. She grew up between service bases and boarding schools, gathering stories, watching people and learning early how to make others laugh.

Her father, Denys, was central to the way she sees herself. She has spoken about how he told her every day that she was clever and beautiful, giving her a deep sense of self worth that still runs through her work. He also lived with severe depression and died when she was nineteen, a loss she later wrote about with a mix of blunt honesty and affection.

Comedy was not originally the plan.

In 1977 she went to the Central School of Speech and Drama in London planning to become a drama teacher. There she met Jennifer Saunders. At first they did not get on at all, but sharing a flat and being roped into classmates’ comedy projects slowly pushed them together. Out of those scrappy sketches came a double act, the Menopause Sisters, and then a lifelong creative partnership.

Through the 1980s the two of them helped shape the British alternative comedy scene. They worked with the Comic Strip team, popped up in shows like The Young Ones and Girls on Top, and eventually built their own BBC sketch series, French & Saunders. Week after week they sent up pop stars, films and television tropes, and in 2009 the pair received a BAFTA Fellowship in recognition of that body of work.

French also built a busy solo career. She starred in the darkly playful anthology Murder Most Horrid and, most famously, as village vicar Geraldine Granger in The Vicar of Dibley, a sitcom written for her that became one of the UK’s best loved comedies. She has continued to mix television, film and theatre, from period dramas such as Lark Rise to Candleford to voice roles in big family films, and has toured widely with one woman stage shows like 30 Million Minutes.

Writing started as a sideline and then became another major strand of her life. Her epistolary memoir Dear Fatty is framed as a series of letters to the people who shaped her, blending backstage stories with an unflashy look at grief, marriage and fame. She has since written four novels, including A Tiny Bit Marvellous, Oh Dear Silvia, According to Yes and Because of You, which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Across them she returns to tangled families, mother and child bonds, secrets and second chances.

Alongside the fiction and memoir she has produced reflective books about age and everyday life such as Me. You. A Diary and Me. You. Not a Diary, as well as more mischievous non fiction like The Twat Files. Earlier in her career she co created knitwear books Big Knits and Great Big Knits with designer Sylvie Soudan, and a sketch collection, A Feast of French and Saunders, drawn from her television work.

Across all of this, she keeps circling the same territory: messy families, complicated women, faith, class and the quiet bravery it takes to like yourself.

In her personal life French married fellow comedian Lenny Henry in 1984 and together they adopted a daughter, Billie. After their separation and divorce in 2010, she later married charity executive Mark Bignell in 2013. She has made her home in Cornwall, taken on roles such as Chancellor of Falmouth University, and returned to the stage with tours that mine her own mistakes for laughs. Whether you meet her as a reader, viewer or theatre goer, the blend of big heart, sharp eye and unpretentious humour is the common thread.