Mark Ellingham was born in Wiltshire, UK, in 1959. After leaving Bristol University in 1981, he was unable to find an interesting job and decided to create his own, writing the first Rough Guide (to Greece). He secured a publishing contract – Routledge paying an advance of £900 ($1800) – midway through writing it. The book was an immediate success and Mark and various friends set to work turning the Rough Guides into a series, producing a dozen further titles over the next five years.

In 1985, Mark and a group of Rough Guide writers and editors, including current travel publisher Martin Dunford, bought the series from Routledge and became independent publishers. They developed more than 200 titles, covering travel and reference subjects as diverse as world music and pregnancy, before selling the company to Penguin Books, in 2002.

Mark (and Martin) continued to run Rough Guides’ publishing at Penguin, 25 years on from that first title, and created a new one-off “ultimate travel experience” series – 25s – to mark the anniversary.

Mark is also a contributing editor for the world music magazine, Songlines, a director of the travel magazine, Wanderlust, and co-publisher of Sort Of Books, which have published bestselling books by Chris Stewart and Tove Jansson, among others. He lives in North London with his wife, Natania Jansz, who co-wrote the first Greece book and now runs Sort Of Books, and their son, Miles. Mark says his interests and passions are charted by the titles on the Rough Guide list, ranging through music, film, football, literature and science. He is currently involved in campaigns to raise awareness of the impact of aviation on Climate Change.

Mark left Rough Guides in 2007 but continues to work as a co-editor on the encyclopedic Rough Guide to World Music. He is also a contributing editor at Songlines World Music magazine, and runs a green and ethical publishing list for Profile Books.