A knighthood for the director of the Edinburgh International Festival leads a strong contingent from the arts in the New Year Honours list.

Brian McMaster, who oversaw his 11th festival this year, said he was "very pleased" to receive the award, honouring his work at the helm of one of the world's leading arts events.

As well as leading the Edinburgh festival, Mr McMaster - who becomes Sir Brian - also sits on the board of the Arts Council of England, and is chairman of the National Opera Studio in London.

Brian McMaster oversaw his 11th festival this year

Novelist and biographer Peter Ackroyd becomes a CBE after the success of his 800-page London: The Biography.

Among many others, he has also written biographies of Ezra Pound, Charles Dickens and Thomas More.

Writer Anthony Buckeridge, who created the hugely popular Jennings books for boys in the 1950s, is awarded an OBE at the age of 90.

French dancer Sylvie Guillem, described as the world's most feted ballerina, is made an honorary CBE, 13 years after she joined the Royal Ballet as its principal guest artist.

The 37-year-old once said: "I just know that when I go on stage, I give everything I have, not only my legs, not only my feet, not only my body. I try to tell a story.

"Sometimes I'm able to cry because I feel like it. Sometimes I'm able to love because I feel like it."

Poet Jo Shapcott is among those honoured

Her award partners the CBE given to Jonathan Cope, principal dancer at the Royal Ballet for 16 years.

His repertory includes Siegfried, Romeo, Florimund and many others. He also created the Illusionist in Sawdust and Tinsel.

A knighthood goes to opera benefactor Peter Moores - the former head of the Littlewoods retail and football pools empire - who has sponsored, largely through his foundation, English translations of many of the world's most famous operas.

Meanwhile Welsh opera singer Bryn Terfel becomes a CBE.

Poet Jo Shapcott, who became the first person to have won the National Poetry Competition twice, the second time in 1991 with her acclaimed poem Phrase Book, becomes a CBE.

Artist Sir Howard Hodgkin, who won the Turner Prize in 1985, becomes a Companion of Honour, as does Sir Denis Mahon, a leading scholar and collector of Baroque art.

Sir Howard Hodgkin becomes a Companion of Honour

He recently deposited 12 paintings from his incomparable collection of 17th Century Italian works at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

An MBE goes to artist Alison Lapping, who was born without arms.

She uses a variety of media including painting, photography, digital imaging and installation to explore her subject, which is often herself and the ways in which she is viewed by others.