Hawking Biography to Unveil Father's Coded Diaries and Family Secrets

A forthcoming biography of physicist Stephen Hawking will incorporate previously unavailable family documents, including the coded diaries of his father, Frank Hawking.

Biography Authorization and Publication

The biography, titled Hawking, has been authorized by the Stephen Hawking estate. It is written by physicist and biographer Graham Farmelo, who won a Costa biography award for his work on Paul Dirac. The book is scheduled for release by John Murray on September 24.

New Source Materials

Farmelo obtained access to previously private family papers and photographs. Among the newly available materials are the diaries of Frank Hawking.

A significant portion of the diary entries were written in a secret code using Greek script. Farmelo has decoded over 200,000 words of these entries.

Farmelo also interviewed Hawking’s sisters, Mary and Philippa; his first wife, Jane; and his three children, Robert, Lucy, and Tim.

Diaries Detail Father's Concerns

Excerpts from the diaries provide a record of Frank Hawking's private observations about his son.

In a 1961 entry, Frank wrote: “We are a little worried at the way Stephen is turning out. He hangs round the house with little initiative and does not study much.” He also noted that Stephen’s mother believed Stephen had an inferiority complex and had “lost faith in physics at Oxford.”

In a 1967 entry, Frank wrote of difficulty interacting with his son due to Stephen’s slowing speech: “I find it a slow and ghastly experience with [Stephen]. … I am very sorry for him and will do all I can for him. But I don’t enjoy being with him.”

Farmelo described the diaries as a significant primary source, providing what he termed a “raw and honest insight” into Hawking’s upbringing and the period following his diagnosis.

Background on Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) was a theoretical physicist and cosmologist.

• He was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (ALS) at age 21 and was given a prognosis of two years to live. He lived with the condition for 55 years.
• The disease eventually caused near-total paralysis, and he used a speech synthesizer to communicate.
• Hawking is known for his work on black holes and for his bestselling book A Brief History of Time, published in 1988, which has sold over 25 million copies.