‘One of the most beloved writers of all time’: the genius of Joan Aiken at 100 | Children and teenagers | The Guardian

There was once a poor widow with two young children who wrote to her agent to ask what had happened to the novel she had sent him. Her husband had died, leaving nothing but debts, and matters were becoming desperate. However, she was not quite the usual aspiring author: for one thing, she was the daughter of a Pulitzer prize-winning poet; for another, she had already published two collections of short stories. It turned out that her agent had forgotten all about it. Her manuscript had been sitting on the windowsill in his office for a year, unread. That manuscript was The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.

Its rapturous reception when it was published in 1962 turned its 38-year-old author, Joan Aiken, into one of the most beloved writers of all time. This year marks the centenary of her birth, and if ever there is a time to discover her more than 100 books for children and adults, it is now.