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Tom Stoppard

Born

in Zlín, Czech Republic

July 03, 1937

Died

November 29, 2025

Genre

Theatre

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Sir Tom Stoppard was a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and political freedom, often delving into the deeper philosophical thematics of society. Stoppard has been a playwright of the National Theatre and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation. He was knighted for his contribution to theatre by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997.

Born in Czechoslovakia, Stoppard left as a child refugee, fleeing imminent Nazi occupation. He settled with his family in Britain after the war, in 1946, having spent the previous three years (1943–1946) in a boarding school in Darjeel Sir Tom Stoppard was a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and political freedom, often delving into the deeper philosophical thematics of society. Stoppard has been a playwright of the National Theatre and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation. He was knighted for his contribution to theatre by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997.

Born in Czechoslovakia, Stoppard left as a child refugee, fleeing imminent Nazi occupation. He settled with his family in Britain after the war, in 1946, having spent the previous three years (1943–1946) in a boarding school in Darjeeling in the Indian Himalayas. After being educated at schools in Nottingham and Yorkshire, Stoppard became a journalist, a drama critic and then, in 1960, a playwright.

Stoppard's most prominent plays include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966), Jumpers (1972), Travesties (1974), Night and Day (1978), The Real Thing (1982), Arcadia (1993), The Invention of Love (1997), The Coast of Utopia (2002), Rock 'n' Roll (2006) and Leopoldstadt (2020). He wrote the screenplays for Brazil (1985), Empire of the Sun (1987), The Russia House (1990), Billy Bathgate (1991), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Enigma (2001), and Anna Karenina (2012), as well as the HBO limited series Parade's End (2013). He directed the film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990), an adaptation of his own 1966 play, with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth as the leads.

He has received numerous awards and honours including an Academy Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, and five Tony Awards. In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 11 in their list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture". It was announced in June 2019 that Stoppard had written a new play, Leopoldstadt, set in the Jewish community of early 20th-century Vienna. The play premiered in January 2020 at Wyndham's Theatre. The play went on to win the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and later the 2022 Tony Award for Best Play. ...more

Combine Editions
Tom Stoppard’s books

Average rating: 4.02 · 155,939 ratings · 7,252 reviews · 158 distinct works • Similar authors

	Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead 4.04 avg rating — 94,213 ratings — published 1967 — 127 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Arcadia 4.13 avg rating — 24,816 ratings — published 1993 — 52 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Real Thing 3.90 avg rating — 5,283 ratings — published 1982 — 55 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Travesties 3.93 avg rating — 3,486 ratings — published 1975	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Invention of Love really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 2,493 ratings — published 1997 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Real Inspector Hound 3.91 avg rating — 2,483 ratings — published 1968 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 2,373 ratings — published 1974 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Rock 'n' Roll 3.73 avg rating — 1,638 ratings — published 2006 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Jumpers 3.70 avg rating — 1,540 ratings — published 1972 — 25 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Leopoldstadt 4.34 avg rating — 1,220 ratings — published 2020 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Tom Stoppard…

Series by Tom Stoppard

The Coast of Utopia (3 books)
by

Tom Stoppard

3.93 avg rating — 1,709 ratings

Quotes by Tom Stoppard (?)

“We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

tags: stoppard

1203 likes

“It is a defect of God's humor that he directs our hearts everywhere but to those who have a right to them.”
― Tom Stoppard, Arcadia

tags: lady-croom, love

601 likes

“Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

tags: attitude, chances, doors, entrance, exit, opportunities, passage, transition

518 likes

See all Tom Stoppard's quotes »

Polls

August 2017 Short Classic Poll

The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe, 1842, 56 pgs

53 votes, 17.0%

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, 1952, 109 pgs

49 votes, 15.7%

The Lady with the Little Dog by Anton Chekhov, 1899, 80 pgs

34 votes, 10.9%

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard, 1966, 126 pgs

32 votes, 10.3%

Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving, 1819, 60 pgs

31 votes, 9.9%

Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville, 1853, 64 pgs

24 votes, 7.7%

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, 1764, 125 pgs

24 votes, 7.7%

The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West, 1918, 82 pgs

19 votes, 6.1%

Satisfaction Guaranteed by Isaac Asimov, 1951, 15 pgs

15 votes, 4.8%

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry, 1905, 30 pgs

12 votes, 3.8%

The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat, 1937, 108 pgs

10 votes, 3.2%

A Worn Path by Eudora Welty, 1941, 32 pg

9 votes, 2.9%

312 total votes

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Tom Stoppard’s Followers (1,031)

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