Anthony Holden (born 22 May 1947) is a British journalist and writer, particularly known as a biographer of the British Royal family. He is also a keen poker player, and spent a year playing seriously while researching his 1990 book Big Deal.

He was born in Jewish family in Lancashire, and educated at the University of Oxford. He has written for a wide range of publications, and is currently music critic of the Sunday Times.

He is one of the relatively few public critics of the J. K. Rowling Harry Potter books. When he was a Whitbread Prize judge in 2000 he was quoted as saying that it would have been a "national humiliation" if Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban had won, ahead of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf.

Works

• Greek Pastoral Poetry (1973) translator
• The St Albans Poisoner: The Life And Crimes Of Graham Young (1974)
• Charles: Prince of Wales (1979) as Prince Charles (US)
• Laurence Oliver: A Biography (1981)
• Their Royal Highnesses, The Prince and Princess of Wales (1981)
• A Week In The Life Of The Royal Family (1983)
• Great Royal Front Pages: A Scrapbook of Historic Royal Events from Queen Victoria to Baby Prince William (1983)
• Royal Quiz (1983)
• Of Presidents, Prime Ministers And Princes (1984)
• Queen Mother (1985)
• Don Giovanni: The Translation (1987) with Amanda Holden
• Charles: A Biography (1988) as King Charles III (US)
• The Last Paragraph. The Journalism of David Blundy (1990) editor
• Big Deal: A Year as a Professional Poker Player (1990)
• The Queen Mother: A 90th Birthday Tribute (1990)
• A Princely Marriage: Charles & Diana, the First Ten Years (1991)
• Behind The Oscar: The Secret History of the Academy Awards (1993)
• H.M. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother In Private (1993)
• The Tarnished Crown (1993)
• Tchaikovsky (1995)
• Diana: Her Life and Legacy (1997)
• Charles at Fifty (1998)
• William Shakespeare: His Life and Work (1999)
• Liber Amicorum for Frank Kermode (1999) editor with Ursula Owen
• The Mind Has Mountains a.alvarez@lxx (1999) editor with Frank Kermode
• The Drama of Love, Life and Death in Shakespeare (2000)
• Shakespeare: An Illustrated Biography (2002)
• Wit in the Dungeon (2005) biography of Leigh Hunt