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James William Davenport Long (born 1 October 1949) is a British novelist, writer of non-fiction and broadcaster. He is best known for his novel Ferney first published by HarperCollins in 1998, republished by Sphere in 2008 and again by Quercus in 2012 who have announced the forthcoming publication of the ferney sequel, The Lives She Left Behind. He has published six other novels under his own name as well as two under the pseudonym of Will Davenport and two more under the pseudonym Nick Nielsen. In 2007, Faber & Faber published 'The Plot Against Pepys' by James and his eldest son ben, a historian. This was a detailed investigation of Samuel Pepys' defence against the treason charges raised against him during the Popish Plot in 1679.

Early life
James Long was born on 1 October 1949 to Bill Long and Althea (nee Davenport) in Rustington, Sussex. His father was a Fleet Air Arm pilot who was mentioned in despatches for his actions in a Seafire at the Salerno invasion and later rejoined the police force, becoming Assistant Chief Constable of the York and North East Yorkshire police force. He was educated at Lancing College, Sussex, briefly at Loughborough University of Technology and then more completely at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford from 1968 to 1971 where he read Politics, Philosophy and Economics.

Career
After graduating, Long joined the City Press newspaper in the City of London where he began to broadcast a daily City news insert for the Radio 4 PM programme. He left in 1973 to spend six months working on an (uncompleted) novel then joined BBC Radio News in 1974 to set up their first dedicated financial news unit. He then became Economics Correspondent for BBC Radio News, transferring to BBC TV News in 1984 in the same role, where he led the way in exposing the details of the Guinness scandal and President Marcos's money-laundering activities. In 1988, he left the BBC with Will Hutton and moved to Zurich to set up the European Business Channel, a ground-breaking dual language satellite and cable channel, as Managing Editor then as Editor-in-Chief when Hutton returned to join the 'Observer'. In 1990, following the collapse of the EBC, Long returned to England. He worked on a few programmes for Channel 4 then turned to writing full-time, fulfilling an ambition held since childhood.