Diana Wynne Jones

b. 16 August 1934 (London, England) d. 26 March 2011 (Bristol, England)

About the Author

• Genre: Children's, fantasy, comic fantasy, Surrealism
• Writing Style:

Biography

Diana was born in London, the daughter of Marjorie (née Jackson) and Richard Aneurin Jones, both of whom were teachers. When war was announced, shortly after her fifth birthday, she was evacuated to Wales, and thereafter moved several times, including periods in the Lake District, in York, and back in London. In 1943 her family finally settled in Thaxted, Essex, where her parents worked running an educational conference centre. There, Jones and her two younger sisters Isobel (later Professor Isobel Armstrong, the literary critic) and Ursula (later an actress and a children's writer) spent a childhood left chiefly to their own devices. After attending the Friends School Saffron Walden, she studied English at St Anne's College in Oxford, where she attended lectures by both C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien before graduating in 1956. In the same year she married John Burrow, a scholar of medieval literature, with whom she had three sons, Richard, Michael and Colin. After a brief period in London, in 1957 the couple returned to Oxford, where they stayed until moving to Bristol in 1976.

According to her autobiography, Jones decided she was an atheist when she was a child.

for more information

visit Wikipedia:Diana Wynne Jones

Series

Chronicles of Chrestomanci series

comprises six novels and four short stories.

• Genre: Children's Fantasy, Young Adult Fantasy
• Theme: Magic

Dalemark Quartet series

• Genre: Children's Fantasy, Young Adult Fantasy
• Theme: Magic

Derkholm series

Dark Lord of Derkholm (1998) – Mythopoeic Award, Children's Fantasy

1. Year of the Griffin (2000)
2. The Tough Guide to Fantasyland (1996) is noted to have similar themes.

Howl's Moving Castle series

For more information (See: Wikipedia:Howl's_Moving_Castle

• Genre: Children's Fantasy, Young Adult Fantasy
• Theme: Sorceress, Sorcery

Other Works

Stand alone books for adults

• Changeover (1970) - reissued 2004, London: Moondust Books, with a new introduction by Jones, "The Origins of Changeover"
• A Sudden Wild Magic (1992) - British Fantasy Award nominee
• Deep Secret (1997) - Part of the Magids Series

Stand alone books for children and young adults

• Wilkins' Tooth (1973); US title: Witch's Business
• The Ogre Downstairs (1974)
• Dogsbody (1975) – Carnegie Medal commendation
• Eight Days of Luke (1975)
• Power of Three (1977) – Guardian Prize commendation; Zilveren Griffel (Netherlands)
• The Homeward Bounders (1981)
• The Time of the Ghost (1981)
• Archer's Goon (1984) – Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Fiction runner-up; World Fantasy Award for Best Novel nominee
• Fire and Hemlock (1984) Mythopoeic Fantasy Award finalist; 2005 Phoenix Award runner-up
• A Tale of Time City (1987)
• Black Maria (1991); US title: Aunt Maria
• Hexwood (1993)
• The Merlin Conspiracy (2003) - Magids Series
• The Game (2007)
• Enchanted Glass (2010) – Locus Awards, Young Adult 5th place
• Earwig and the Witch (2011) (Illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky)
• The Islands of Chaldea (2014), by Jones and her sister Ursula Jones

For her complete bibliography (See: Wikipedia:Diana_Wynne_Jones_bibliography)