Kingdom Under the Sea

Joan Aiken (Author) Joan Aiken was born in Sussex in 1924. She was the daughter of the American poet, Conrad Aiken; her sister, Jane Aiken Hodge, is also a novelist. Before joining the 'family business' herself, Joan had a variety of jobs, including working for the BBC, the United Nations Information Centre and then as features editor for a short story magazine. Her first children's novel, The Kingdom of the Cave, was published in 1960. Joan Aiken wrote over a hundred books for young readers and adults and is recognized as one of the classic authors of the twentieth century. Amanda Craig, writing in The Times, said, 'She was a consummate story-teller, one that each generation discovers anew.' Her best-known books are those in the James III saga, of which The Wolves of Willoughby Chase was the first title, published in 1962 and awarded the Lewis Carroll prize. Both that and Black Hearts in Battersea have been filmed. Her books are internationally acclaimed and she received the Edgar Allan Poe Award in the United States as well as the Guardian Award for Fiction in this country for The Whispering Mountain.Joan Aiken was decorated with an MBE for her services to children's books. She died in 2004.Jan Pienkowski (Illustrator) Jan Pienkowski was born in Warsaw in 1936. After creating his first book at the age of eight, Jan went on to excel in his chosen field of design, working in such diverse areas as television, theatre and greetings cards. Published in 1968, A Necklace of Raindrops was the first of several wonderful collaborations between Jan and Joan Aiken - and it was also the very first book Jan illustrated. He has since twice won the Kate Greenaway Medal for Illustration, and has created many instantly recognizable classics.

Anyone who enjoyed the works of Joan Aiken and Jan Pienkowski at an impressionable age will coo fondly over the reissue of 1971's The Kingdom Under the Sea, Aiken's retelling of a series of Eastern European folk-tales. It too, is chock-full of ghastliness, as vintage children's tales used to be. Pienkowski's illustrations are whimsically macabre