Cronin was educated at Ampleforth College, Harvard University, and Trinity College, Oxford, from which he graduated with honours in 1947. During the Second World War, he served as a lieutenant in the British Army. In 1949, he married Chantal de Rolland, and they have five children. The Cronins are long-time residents of London, Marbella, and Dragey, in Avranches, Basse-Normandie, where they live at the Manoir de Brion.

In addition to being a recipient of a W.H. Heinemann Award (1955) and a Rockefeller Foundation Award (1958), Cronin is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His father is the Scottish novelist, A. J. Cronin.

Works

• The Golden Honeycomb: A Sicilian Quest (1954) ISBN 0-246-11125-9
• The Wise Man from the West: Matteo Ricci and his Mission to China (1955) ISBN 0-00-626749-1
• The Last Migration (1957) (on the Faiqani tribe of South Persia) ISBN 0-85617-608-7
• "T. S. Eliot as a Translator." T. S. Eliot: A Symposium for His Seventieth Birthday. Ed. Neville Braybrooke, 129-137 (1958) ISBN 0-900-39182-0
• A Pearl to India: The Life of Roberto de Nobili (1959) ISBN 0-246-63709-9
• The letter After Z (1960) (novel)
• Translator, L'Amour Profane by Alfred Kern (1961) (novel)
• A Calendar of Saints (1963)
• The Companion Guide to Paris (1963 - first edition) ISBN 0-00-613765-2
• Louis XIV (1964) ISBN 0-00-272072-8
• Translator, The Christian Centuries: A New History of the Catholic Church, Volume One: The First Six Hundred Years by Jean Danielou and Henri Marrou (1964) ISBN 0-232-35604-1
• Four Women in Pursuit of an Ideal (1965) (about Caroline de Berry, Marie D'Agoult, Eve Hanska and Marie Bashkirtseff; also published as The Romantic Way, 1966)
• Editor, The Sunday Times Travel and Holiday Guide (1966) (edited with Elizabeth Nicholas and Leonard Russell)
• The Florentine Renaissance (1967) ISBN 0-00-211262-0
• Mary Portrayed (1968) ISBN 0-87505-213-4
• "The Classical Ideal in Florence." Essays by Divers Hands, Volume XXXV: 23-39 (1969)
• Editor, The Companion Guide to the West Highlands of Scotland by W.H. Murray (1969) ISBN 0-13-154774-7
• The Flowering of the Renaissance (1969) ISBN 0-7126-9884-1
• Editor, The Companion Guide to the North Island of New Zealand by Errol Brathwaite (1970) ISBN 0-00-211139-X
• Napoleon (1971), ISBN 0-00-637521-9 (also published as Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography, 1972, ISBN 0-688-00100-9)
• The Horizon Concise History of Italy (1972) ISBN 0-07-014477-X (also published as A Concise History of Italy, 1973, ISBN 0-304-29236-2)
• Louis and Antoinette (1974) ISBN 0-8095-9216-9
• Translator, Towards a New Democracy by Valery Giscard D'Estaing (1977) ISBN 0-00-216156-7
• Catherine, Empress of All the Russias (1978) ISBN 0-00-216119-2
• Editor, Essays by Divers Hands, Volume XL (1979) ISBN 0-85115-119-1
• Editor, The Companion Guide to Florence by Eve Borsook (1979) ISBN 0-00-216245-8
• The View from Planet Earth: Man Looks at the Cosmos (1981) ISBN 0-688-01479-8
• Paris on the Eve, 1900-1914 (1989) ISBN 0-312-04876-9
• The Renaissance (1992) ISBN 0-00-215411-0
• Paris: City of Light, 1919-1939 (1994) ISBN 0-00-215191-X

External links

• Author Tracker
• Text of The Golden Honeycomb
• Academy of Achievement