A Ghostly Gallery
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The stories in A Ghostly Gallery were written over a period of sixty years, the whole length of Joan Aiken's writing career; some appeared in her very first collections of what her father Conrad Aiken called "Twentieth century Fairy stories for the young of all ages."
Stories include A Roomful of Leaves, where a boy escapes an unbearable family and disappears into the Elizabethan past, and the luminously uplifting Watkyn Comma about a ghost mouse who rescues a lonely heroine. These stories often inspired by dreams and myths are written to comfort and console. Some appeared in anthologies, such as a Pan Ghost Book, or in her own collections for younger readers, which came out in England and America. As she moved away from overtly scary stories towards the end of her life, these are her gentler tales of mystery and imagination.
Two of the stories have not previously appeared in an Aiken collection.
Dancing in the Air, and Lungewater
Joan Aiken
Joan Aiken was born in Rye, Sussex in 1924, daughter of the American poet Conrad Aiken, and started writing herself at the age of five. Since the 1960s she wrote full time and published over 100 books.
Best known for her children’s books such as The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and Midnight is a Place, she also wrote extensively for adults and published many contemporary and historical novels, including sequels to novels by Jane Austen. In 1968 she won the Guardian Children’s book prize for Whispering Mountain, followed by an Edgar Allan Poe award for Night Fall in 1972, and was awarded an MBE for her services to children’s literature in 1999.
Joan Aiken died in 2004.
More by Joan Aiken
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