Diana Wynne Jones

Diana Wynne Jones (1934-2011) was a British author of fantasy for children and young adults, born in London on 16 August 1934, best known for Howl's Moving Castle and the Chrestomanci books. She died in Bristol on 26 March 2011, aged 76.

She read English at St Anne's College, Oxford, where she attended lectures by C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, graduating in 1956, the year she married the scholar John Burrow. Her first book, the adult novel Changeover, was published by Macmillan in 1970. Children's fantasy soon became her main work: the Dalemark Quartet began with Cart and Cwidder (1975), and Dogsbody appeared the same year. Charmed Life (Macmillan, 1977) launched the Chrestomanci series and won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. Later titles include Fire and Hemlock (1984), Howl's Moving Castle (1986) and its sequels Castle in the Air (1990) and House of Many Ways (2008), Hexwood (1993), the satirical guide The Tough Guide to Fantasyland (1997) and Dark Lord of Derkholm (1998). She won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award twice and the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2007. Hayao Miyazaki's 2004 animated film of Howl's Moving Castle was nominated for an Academy Award.

For collectors

Howl's Moving Castle is her best-known title, and its edition history matters: Greenwillow Books published it in New York in April 1986, ahead of the British first edition from Methuen in November 1986. The Macmillan first of Charmed Life (1977), her prize-winning Chrestomanci debut, and the 1970 Macmillan first of Changeover are the other key early books.