"It seems to me that humour is everybody's way of keeping sane and standing off from the situations so that they can see it intellectually, as well as emotionally, and I don't know whether you've noticed, but if somebody tells a joke, it's nearly always a mini fantasy." -- Diana Wynne Jones
Diana Wynne Jones (born London 16 August 1934) is a British writer, principally of fantasy novels for children and adults, as well as a small amount of non-fiction. Some of her better-known works include the Chrestomanci series and the novels Howl's Moving Castle and Dark Lord of Derkholm.
"Actually, in the wild, we'd be the only person that we wouldn't recognize, if you think about it.""And indeed if you think you're a genius at something, what you achieve is very much according to your expectations; if you think you're no good, you're not going to get anywhere.""Fantasy for me as a kid was real, and I had a fantasy about what life was, whether it was sort of wicked and dire, or wholly normal, or whatever. Anything really close to home is not, it seems to me, what a good book should be about.""I do feel very strongly that this is one of the things which people need encouragement to sort out, because I have this very strong feeling that everybody is probably a genius at something, it's just a question of finding this.""I find it just simply takes me right back to those times, and I really can't take it, I don't want to, I mean, why should I face up to it? What good does it do me? I know it happened, and that's it.""I mean one of the things about being alone is that you've no people to define yourself off, I mean, people are like all-round mirrors, because let's face it, we don't often see ourselves all round in a mirror anyway, do we.""I think one of things is that all fantasy it seems to me works the way your brain basically works. This is perhaps a startling concept, but I think it's true.""If you take myth and folklore, and these things that speak in symbols, they can be interpreted in so many ways that although the actual image is clear enough, the interpretation is infinitely blurred, a sort of enormous rainbow of every possible colour you could imagine.""It's a lucky child that knows that they're a genius, unaimed and all that.""Mainly as sort of blueprints for dealing with most of the adults in their lives, to some extent with their fellows. It is this notion of aiming high and there's always hope, aim low and you might as well stop now.""This does make me very very careful, particularly in the second draft, to get it right, because you do feel that somebody in the future who may be extremely important for everybody, is going to have me behind them, and this is a responsibility, a huge one.""This is ridiculous, I mean, wholly ridiculous. It never did any child any harm to have something that was a tiny bit above them anyway, and I claim that anyone who can follow Doctor Who can follow absolutely anything."
Jones was born in London on 16 August 1934, the daughter of Marjorie (née Jackson) and Richard Aneurin Jones, both of whom were educators. When war was announced, shortly after her fifth birthday, she was evacuated to Wales, and thereafter moved several times, including periods in Coniston Water, 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 spent a neglected childhood in which they were 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 has 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.
Jones' books range from a broad, almost slapstick delight in the construction of absurd-yet-logical situations (especially evident in the endings of some of her books), to sharp social observation, to witty parody of literary forms. Foremost amongst the latter are her Tough Guide to Fantasyland, and its fictional companion-pieces Dark Lord of Derkholm (1998) and Year of the Griffin (2000), which provide a merciless (though not unaffectionate) critique of formulaic sword-and-sorcery epics.
The Harry Potter books are frequently compared to the works of Diana Wynne Jones. Many of her earlier children's books were out of print in recent years, but have now been re-issued for the young audience whose interest in fantasy and reading was spurred by Harry Potter.
Jones' works are also compared to those of Robin McKinley and Neil Gaiman. She is friends with Gaiman, and they are both fans of each others' work; she dedicated her novel Hexwood to him after something he said in a conversation that inspired a key part of the plot. Gaiman had already dedicated his 1991 four-part comic book mini-series The Books of Magic to "four witches", of whom Jones was one.
Charmed Life, the first book in the Chrestomanci series, won the 1977 Guardian Award for Children’s Books. Jones was runner-up for the Children’s Book Award in 1981, and was twice runner-up for the Carnegie Medal. In 1999, she won two major fantasy awards: the children’s section of the Mythopoeic Awards in the USA, and the Karl Edward Wagner Award in the UK, which is awarded by the British Fantasy Society to individuals or organisations who have made a significant impact on fantasy.
Her book Howl's Moving Castle was adapted as a Japanese animated movie in 2004, by filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. A version dubbed into English was released in the United Kingdom and USA in 2005, with the voice of Howl performed by Christian Bale. Archer's Goon was adapted for television in 1992.
Her non-fiction work on clichés in fantasy fiction, The Tough Guide To Fantasyland, has a cult following as a reference among writers and critics, despite being difficult to find due to an erratic printing history. It was recently reissued in the UK, and has been reissued in the USA in 2006 by Firebird Books. The Firebird edition has additional material and a completely new design, including a new map.
In July 2006 she was awarded an honorary D.Litt from the University of Bristol. She received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2007.
According to her autobiography, Diana has been an atheist since she was ten.
Jones was diagnosed with lung cancer in the early summer of 2009. She underwent surgery in July and reported to friends that the procedure had been successful. However in June 2010 she announced that she would be discontinuing chemotherapy 'which is serving only to make her feel very ill indeed.' She has stated recently that she's regained her sense of taste and smell. She is halfway through a new book, with plans for another to follow.
The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988) Carnegie Medal, Commended
Conrad's Fate (2005)
Charmed Life (1977) Carnegie Medal, Commended; Guardian Award; Preis der Leseratten (ZDF Schülerexpress, Germany)
The Magicians of Caprona (1980)
The Pinhoe Egg (2006) Mythopoeic Awards for children's literature, nominated; Locus Awards for young adult book, nominated
Mixed Magics (2000) (short stories of varying internal dates)
Stealer of Souls (2002) (published for World Book Day 2002) - this story was previously published in Mixed Magics
Witch Week (1982) (separate from other books in series, but set in same era as The Magicians of Caprona - The Pinhoe Egg - Charmed Life, and containing the Chrestomanci as a major character)
Reading Order
Diana Wynne Jones, however, herself recommends reading the books in this order:
Charmed Life (1977)
The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988)
Conrad's Fate (2005)
Witch Week (1982)
The Magicians of Caprona (1980)
The short stories can be read in any order after that.
In chronology The Pinhoe Egg is set soon after a short story in Mixed Magics which follows on from "The Magicians of Caprona".
Chronicles of Chrestomanci
The Chronicles of Chrestomanci series are set in three volumes:
Volume 1 contains Charmed Life and The Lives of Christopher Chant.
Volume 2 contains Witch Week and The Magicians of Caprona.
Volume 3 contains Conrad's Fate and The Pinhoe Egg.
Derkholm series
Dark Lord of Derkholm (1998) Mythopoeic Fantasy Award See also Jones' remarks on winning the award
Year of the Griffin (2000)
Dalemark Quartet
In order of internal chronology:
The Spellcoats (1979)
Drowned Ammet (1977)
Cart and Cwidder (1975)
Crown of Dalemark (1993)
However, when the books were published by Oxford University Press, they were numbered in the order in which they were published (Cart, Drowned Ammet, Spellcoats, Crown) and it is possible to read them in this order without any spoilers.
Castle series
Howl's Moving Castle (1986) Honor book for the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, 2004 Hayao Miyazaki movie nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature
Castle in the Air (1990) Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, nominated
