Joan Aiken (1924–2004)
Autore di The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
Sull'Autore
Joan Delano Aiken was born in Rye, Sussex, England, on September 4, 1924, the daughter of the Pulitzer Prize winner, writer Conrad Aiken. She was raised in a rural area and home schooled by her mother until the age 12. She then attended Wychwood School, a boarding school in Oxford. Her work first mostra altro appeared in 1941 when the British Broadcasting Corporation, where she worked as a librarian, broadcast some of her short stories on their Children's Hour program. Aiken also worked at St. Thomas's Hospital, and in 1943 she moved to the reference department of the London office of the United Nations, where she collected information about resistance movements. She worked for the UN until 1949, all the while continuing to write stories. In 1953 a collection of short fiction called All You've Ever Wanted and Other Stories was published. While writing The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, begun in 1952, her husband became ill and died of lung cancer in 1955. After working for five years as a copy editor at Argosy Magazine, and at the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Firm, she returned and finished the book in 1963. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award and was made into a successful film in 1988. In 1969 The Whispering Mountain won the Guardian Children's Book Award, and in 1972, Night Fall won America's Edgar Allen Poe Award for juvenile mystery. Aiken is best known for her adult "fantasy" stories. She has received awards for children's fiction and for mystery fiction, and has also written ''sequels'' to Jane Austen books. She collaborated with her daughter to write many episodes of her Arabel and Mortimer the raven series for the BBC. In all, Aiken wrote 92 novels - including 27 for adults - as well as plays, poems and short stories, although she was best known as a writer of children's stories. Joan Aiken died in January of 2004 at the age of 79. (Bowker Author Biography) mostra meno
Fonte dell'immagine: Rod Delroy
Serie
Opere di Joan Aiken
Jane Fairfax: The Secret Story of the Second Heroine in Jane Austen's Emma (1990) — Autore — 377 copie
The Watsons and Emma Watson: Jane Austen's Unfinished Novel Completed by Joan Aiken (1996) 120 copie
The Rented Swan 4 copie
Mitox (I) 3 copie
Clem's Dream [short fiction] 3 copie
Treffpunkt Kuckucksbaum 2 copie
Hair (short story) 2 copie
O Sonâmbulo do inverno 2 copie
Der Schrei: Geisterstunde 2 copie
1992 1 copia
1991 1 copia
Mortimer und die Brottrommel 1 copia
Ghostly Beasts 1 copia
Das Todesparfüm 1 copia
הזאבים מאחוזת וילובי 1 copia
I lupi di Willoughby Chase 1 copia
Lodgers [short fiction] 1 copia
L' Eredita' Contesa 1 copia
Harp Music (short story) 1 copia
Lungewater [short story] 1 copia
Goblin Music 1 copia
Find Me 1 copia
The Companion 1 copia
Finders Keepers 1 copia
Marmalade Wine [short story] 1 copia
Water of Youth (short story) 1 copia
A Mermaid Too Many [short story] 1 copia
Octopi in the Sky (short story) 1 copia
Model Wife (short story) 1 copia
Second Thoughts (short story) 1 copia
Girl in a Whirl (short story) 1 copia
Red-Hot Favourite (short story) 1 copia
Spur of the Moment (short story) 1 copia
The Paper Queen (short story) 1 copia
The Magnesia Tree (short story) 1 copia
Honeymaroon (short story) 1 copia
The Helper (short story) 1 copia
Wee Robin (short story) 1 copia
Mortimers Kreuz. 1 copia
Opere correlate
The 20th-Century Children's Book Treasury: Picture Books and Stories to Read Aloud (1998) — Autore — 1,563 copie
Ladies of Fantasy: Two Centuries of Sinister Stories by the Gentle Sex (1975) — Collaboratore — 46 copie
Bruce Coville's Book of Nightmares II: More Tales to Make You Scream (1997) — Collaboratore — 43 copie
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction July/August 2011, Vol. 121, Nos. 1 & 2 (2011) — Collaboratore — 14 copie
Geschichten Geschichten Geschichten . Zum Vorlesen und zum Selberlesen. Bilder von Ingrid Schneider (1988) — Collaboratore — 11 copie
Fear in the Blood: Tales from the Dark Lineages of the Weird: 48 (British Library Tales of the Weird) (2024) — Collaboratore — 4 copie
Cricket Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 6, February 1977 — Collaboratore — 2 copie
Cricket Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 11, July 1977 — Collaboratore — 1 copia
Cricket Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 10, June 1977 — Collaboratore — 1 copia
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Nome legale
- Goldstein, Joan Delano Aiken Brown
- Data di nascita
- 1924-09-04
- Data di morte
- 2004-01-04
- Sesso
- female
- Nazionalità
- UK
- Luogo di nascita
- Rye, East Sussex, England, UK
- Luogo di morte
- Petworth, West Sussex, England, UK
- Luogo di residenza
- London, England, UK
New York, USA - Istruzione
- Wychwood School for Girls, Oxford
- Attività lavorative
- Children's Author
Novelist
Advertising Copywriter
Editor - Relazioni
- Aiken, Conrad (father)
Armstrong, Martin (stepfather)
Hodge, Jane Aiken (sister)
Aiken, John (brother)
Brown, Ronald George (husband)
Goldstein, Julius (husband) (mostra tutto 7)
Aiken, Lizza (daughter) - Organizzazioni
- BBC
Argosy - Premi e riconoscimenti
- Guardian Award (1969)
Edgar Allan Poe Award (1972)
Member of the Order of the British Empire (1999) - Agente
- A. M. Heath & Co.
- Breve biografia
- Joan Aiken was an English writer who received the MBE for services to Children's Literature. She was known as a writer of wild fantasy, Gothic novels and short stories.
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 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. For her books she received the Guardian Award (1969) and the Edgar Allan Poe Award (1972).
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. These books also feature cockney urchin heroine Dido Twite and her adventures and travels all over the world.
Another 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. Others including the much loved Necklace of Raindrops and award winning Kingdom Under the Sea are illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski.
Her many novels for adults include several that continue or complement novels by Jane Austen. These include Mansfield Revisited and Jane Fairfax.
Aiken was a lifelong fan of ghost stories. She set her adult supernatural novel The Haunting of Lamb House at Lamb House in Rye (now a National Trust property). This ghost story recounts in fictional form an alleged haunting experienced by two former residents of the house, Henry James and E. F. Benson, both of whom also wrote ghost stories. Aiken's father, Conrad Aiken, also authored a small number of notable ghost stories.
Utenti
Discussioni
British Author Challenge January 2024: Joan Aiken & Arthur Conan Doyle in 75 Books Challenge for 2024 (Febbraio 17)
THE DEEP ONES: "Cold Flame" by Joan Aiken in The Weird Tradition (Settembre 2022)
THE DEEP ONES: "Reading in Bed" by Joan Aiken in The Weird Tradition (Giugno 2022)
Joan Aiken romance- main female lead dies in Name that Book (Marzo 2016)
Recensioni
The wolves of Willoughby Chase di Joan Aiken
Very much in the "classic" Perils of Pauline style. Uses words that are of the period which could make it a bit inaccessible to children.
Scintillating start to a wonderful series. I am hooked on this series and am looking forward to reading the rest of it.
I liked this gothic melodrama for Aiken's writing style, her sardonic observations of the New York upper crust, and the appealing heroine.
It begins in New York, where Valla, a journalist, is engaged to Bennett. She's beginning to realise that she doesn't fit into his milieu and will never be welcomed by his family, so when her half-brother, Nils, asks her to go to England to take care of his children for a short time, she agrees. When she gets to England Valla finds her brother and his wife missing and their house for let. She finds the children in desperate straits and applies to their great aunts for help. They send Valla and the two children to stay in a dilapidated Scottish Castle looked after by a grumpy old woman.
There are a lot of plot threads, and some of them are ludicrous. Valla's brother Nils is an evil man, and his closest friend is even worse. There's a Jack the Ripper clone on the loose, the Beast of Bermondsey. Jannie, the younger child behaves very oddly. The old lady in the castle has a mysterious, tragic history. There's a helpful doctor who never wants to marry, and a gout-ridden magazine editor who is taken with Valla. Towards the end of the book it seems that Aiken has lost patience with her people and her plot. The threads converge and .... I don't want to spoil things!
Castle Barebane was a mess, but I enjoyed it.… (altro)
It begins in New York, where Valla, a journalist, is engaged to Bennett. She's beginning to realise that she doesn't fit into his milieu and will never be welcomed by his family, so when her half-brother, Nils, asks her to go to England to take care of his children for a short time, she agrees. When she gets to England Valla finds her brother and his wife missing and their house for let. She finds the children in desperate straits and applies to their great aunts for help. They send Valla and the two children to stay in a dilapidated Scottish Castle looked after by a grumpy old woman.
There are a lot of plot threads, and some of them are ludicrous. Valla's brother Nils is an evil man, and his closest friend is even worse. There's a Jack the Ripper clone on the loose, the Beast of Bermondsey. Jannie, the younger child behaves very oddly. The old lady in the castle has a mysterious, tragic history. There's a helpful doctor who never wants to marry, and a gout-ridden magazine editor who is taken with Valla. Towards the end of the book it seems that Aiken has lost patience with her people and her plot. The threads converge and .... I don't want to spoil things!
Castle Barebane was a mess, but I enjoyed it.… (altro)
In the town of Blastburn, England, stands a dark mansion called Midnight Court. Midnight Mill, the town’s carpet factory, darkens the sky with its smoke. Gloom and hardship became a way of life to the millworkers when years before, the Murgatroyd family lost both the town and the factory to Sir Randolph. Young Lucas Bell endures a dismal existence at Midnight Court. His father, who had been Sir Randolph's business partner, is dead. Sir Randolph is an embittered drunkard who pays him scant attention, and Mr. Oakapple, his tutor, is a stern young man. When feisty Anna-Marie Murgatroyd comes to Midnight Court as Sir Randolph’s ward, she provides a welcome diversion in Lucas' life. Then, one dark winter night, Midnight Court is destroyed by fire. With no home and no money, Lucas and Anna-Marie roam the unfriendly streets of Blastburn. They eventually find odd jobs, rent an attic room, and help Nurse Mr. Oakapple back to health. When the children find Anna’s grandmother, Lady Murgatroyd, living in a cave in Midnight Court Park, they hope that she will be able to set things right.
©2024 Kathy Maxwell at https://bookskidslike.com… (altro)
©2024 Kathy Maxwell at https://bookskidslike.com… (altro)
Liste
Sonlight Books (2)
Edgar Award (1)
grrrrrl power (1)
Best Young Adult (1)
Ghosts (1)
Spirit of Place (1)
1964 Project (1)
1960s (1)
Books with Twins (1)
Austenland (5)
Children's Humor (4)
Elevenses (3)
Female Author (3)
Premi e riconoscimenti
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Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 212
- Opere correlate
- 125
- Utenti
- 18,057
- Popolarità
- #1,220
- Voto
- 3.9
- Recensioni
- 418
- ISBN
- 1,005
- Lingue
- 20
- Preferito da
- 76
