Joan Aiken Popular Books

Joan Aiken Biography & Facts

Joan Delano Aiken (4 September 1924 – 4 January 2004) was an English writer specialising in supernatural fiction and children's alternative history novels. In 1999 she was awarded an MBE for her services to children's literature. For The Whispering Mountain, published by Jonathan Cape in 1968, she won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a book award judged by a panel of British children's writers, and she was a commended runner-up for the Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British writer. She won an Edgar Allan Poe Award (1972) for Night Fall. Biography Aiken was born in Mermaid Street in Rye, Sussex, on 4 September 1924. Her father was the American Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Conrad Aiken (1889–1973). Her older brother was the writer and research chemist John Aiken (1913–1990), and her older sister was the writer Jane Aiken Hodge (1917–2009). Their mother, Canadian-born Jessie MacDonald (1889–1970), was a Master's graduate from Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Jessie and Conrad's marriage was dissolved in 1929, and Jessie married the English writer Martin Armstrong in 1930. Conrad Aiken went on to marry twice more. Together with her brother John and her sister Jane, Joan Aiken wrote Conrad Aiken Remembered (1989), a short appreciation of their father. Aiken was taught at home by her mother until the age of twelve and from 1936 to 1940 at Wychwood School for girls in North Oxford. She did not attend university. Writing stories from an early age, she finished her first full-length novel when she was sixteen and had her first short story for adults accepted for publication when she was seventeen. In 1941 her first children's story was broadcast on the BBC's Children's Hour.Aiken worked for the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in London between 1943 and 1949. In September 1945 she married Ronald George Brown, a journalist who was also working at UNIC. They had two children before he died in 1955. After her husband's death, Aiken joined the magazine Argosy, where she worked in various editorial capacities and, she later said, learned her trade as a writer. The magazine was one of many in which she published short stories between 1955 and 1960. During this time she also published her first two collections of children's stories and began work on a children's novel, initially titled Bonnie Green, which was later published in 1962 as The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. By then she was able to write full-time from home, producing two or three books a year for the rest of her life, mainly children's books and thrillers, as well as many articles, introductions and talks on children's literature and on the work of Jane Austen. Personal life and death Aiken married, secondly, to the New York landscape painter and teacher Julius Goldstein (died 2001) in 1976. They divided their time between her home (the Hermitage in Petworth, Sussex) and his native New York. In September 1999, she was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire. Aiken died at home at the age of 79 in 2004. She was survived by her two children. Writings Aiken produced more than 100 books, including more than a dozen collections of fantasy stories, plays and poems, and modern and historical novels for adults and children. She was a lifelong fan of ghost stories, particularly those of M. R. James, Fitz James O'Brien and Nugent Barker. As well as writing under her own name, she used the pen name Nicholas Dee for several short stories. Some of her books focus on spine-chilling or supernatural events, including The Windscreen Weepers (stories, 1969), The Shadow Guests (novel, 1980), A Whisper in the Night (stories, 1982), and A Creepy Company (stories, 1993, with variant contents in its US and UK editions). 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. Many of Aiken's most popular books, including the Wolves Chronicles (also known as The Wolves of Willoughby Chase series or the James III series), are set in an elaborate alternative history of Britain in which James II was never deposed in the Glorious Revolution, but supporters of the House of Hanover continually agitate against the monarchy. These books also toy with the geography of London, adding a Canal District among other features. Wolves have invaded the country from Europe via the newly built Channel Tunnel. The novels share a varying cast and a variety of interlinked child protagonists—initially Bonnie Green, but subsequently her itinerant friend Simon, Simon's intrepid Cockney friend Dido Twite (the heroine of most of the books), Dido's half-sister Is and Owen Hughes (son of Dido's Royal Navy ally Captain Hughes). In a review of Midwinter Nightingale for the School Library Journal, Susan Patron praised the characterisations and the suspenseful plot and noted that "although the titles in the 'Wolves' series may be read independently", readers may want to read the earlier books first.Aiken's series of children's books about Arabel and Mortimer were illustrated by Quentin Blake. Others were illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski and Pat Marriott. Pieńkowski won the foremost British award for children's book illustration, the Greenaway Medal, for The Kingdom Under the Sea and Other Stories (Jonathan Cape, 1971), a collection of "unique fairy tales from Eastern Europe and Russia" retold by Aiken. She participated in the Puffin Book Club's annual Children's Literature Summer Camp, run by Colony Holidays, predecessor to ATE Superweeks, along with other popular children's authors such as Ian Serraillier and Clive King. Her novels for adults include several that continue or complement novels by Jane Austen. These include Mansfield Revisited and Jane Fairfax. Adaptations Two of Joan Aiken's stories from her 1968 collection A Necklace of Raindrops were adapted into animated short films by director Tatyana Mititella at Soyuzmultfilm studio in the Soviet Union: A Rainy Day (Дождливая история, 1988), adapts The Baker's Cat and is set to Paul Whiteman's 1928 song Chiquita and other jazz standards Apple Pie (Яблочный пирог, 1991), adapts There's Some Sky in This Pie and also features jazz musicSelected works Wolves Chronicles The Wolves Chronicles vary in length from less than 150 pages to more than 250 pages. Here the novels are listed in narrative order, and their central characters. Main series The Whispering Mountain (1968), a prequel to the series The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (featuring Bonnie Green, Sylvia Green and Simon) (1962) Black Hearts in Battersea (featuring Dido Twite and Simon) (1964) Nightbirds on Nantucket (Dido Twite) (1966) The Stolen Lake (Dido Twite) (1981) Limbo Lodge (U.S. title: Dangerous Games) (Dido Twite) (1999) .... Discover the Joan Aiken popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Joan Aiken books.

Best Seller Joan Aiken Books of 2024

  • Wormwood Mire synopsis, comments

    Wormwood Mire

    Judith Rossell

    This spinetingling sequel to WitheringbySea sees Stella sent away to the moldering old family estate, where she discovers two odd cousinsand a mystery.Elevenyearold Stella Montgome...

  • The Watsons and Emma Watson synopsis, comments

    The Watsons and Emma Watson

    Joan Aiken & Jane Austen

    Jane Austen wrote the untitled fragment that was later called The Watsons in 18035, and it was published posthumously in 1871. Joan Aiken, well known for her Jane Austen sequels an...

  • In the House of Dark Music synopsis, comments

    In the House of Dark Music

    Frances Lynch & D.G. Compton

    A graveyard, sinister music, a small child's nightmare...A children's tune played on a hurdygurdyA small boy's nightmareThe same tune played by an old blind beggar outside a foggy ...

  • The Fine and Handsome Captain synopsis, comments

    The Fine and Handsome Captain

    Frances Lynch & D.G. Compton

    Will she ever escape her past?Romantic suspense for fans of Joan Aiken and BridgertonYoung Hester Malpass knew little of her past. Only that she was an orphan who was now working i...

  • A Dangerous Magic synopsis, comments

    A Dangerous Magic

    Frances Lynch & D.G. Compton

    A new life but will it bring happiness?Wonderfully compelling historical romance perfect for fans of BRIDGERTONBridie Tantallon is setting out on a new life one that she hopes w...

  • Stranger at the Wedding synopsis, comments

    Stranger at the Wedding

    Frances Lynch & D.G. Compton

    Mistaken identity, romance, suspense perfect for fans of Bridgerton'I cannot marry him,' said Caroline. 'I am not Kate. I am only her twin.' All Caroline knew when she came to her...

  • Twice Ten Thousand Miles synopsis, comments

    Twice Ten Thousand Miles

    Frances Lynch & D.G. Compton

    Intriguing, suspenseful historical romanceWhen Beth leaves home and more importantly, her domineering aunt to take a PR job at a stately home she thinks she has finally found a p...

  • Withering-by-Sea synopsis, comments

    Withering-by-Sea

    Judith Rossell

    A stalwart orphan sets out on a spinetingling adventure in this wildly imaginative and darkly funny Victorian middle grade novel.High on a cliff above the gloomy Victorian town of ...

  • War Stories synopsis, comments

    War Stories

    Michael Morpurgo

    Specially commissioned by Michael Morpurgo to mark the 60th anniversary of VE day, this deeply moving collection features stories of war from the most wellloved voices in children'...