Her books were out-of-print for a while and I haunted second-hand bookshops in the hopes of building up my collection. Joan Aiken is one of my all-time favourite children’s writers. Aiken's father, Conrad Aiken, also authored a small number of notable ghost stories. Benson, both of whom also wrote ghost stories. This ghost story recounts in fictional form an alleged haunting experienced by two former residents of the house, Henry James and E. She set her adult supernatural novel The Haunting of Lamb House at Lamb House in Rye (now a National Trust property). These include Mansfield Revisited and Jane Fairfax.Īiken was a lifelong fan of ghost stories. Her many novels for adults include several that continue or complement novels by Jane Austen. Others including the much loved Necklace of Raindrops and award winning Kingdom Under the Sea are illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski. These books also feature cockney urchin heroine Dido Twite and her adventures and travels all over the world.Īnother series of children's books about Arabel and her raven Mortimer are illustrated by Quentin Blake, and have been shown on the BBC as Jackanory and drama series. Her most popular series, the 'Wolves Chronicles' which began with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, was set in an elaborate alternate period of history in a Britain in which James II was never deposed in the Glorious Revolution,and so supporters of the House of Hanover continually plot to overthrow the Stuart Kings. For her books she received the Guardian Award (1969) and the Edgar Allan Poe Award (1972). She worked for the United Nations Information Office during the second world war, and then as an editor and freelance on Argosy magazine before she started writing full time, mainly children's books and thrillers. She was born in Rye, East Sussex, into a family of writers, including her father, Conrad Aiken (who won a Pulitzer Prize for his poetry), and her sister, Jane Aiken Hodge. She was known as a writer of wild fantasy, Gothic novels and short stories. Joan Aiken was a much loved English writer who received the MBE for services to Children's Literature.

Midnight is a place joan aiken