Joan Aiken Books In Order

Publication Order of Arabel and Mortimer Books

Publication Order of Armitage Family Books

Publication Order of Felix Brooke Books

Publication Order of Jane Austen Books

Publication Order of Paget Family Saga Books

Publication Order of Ribs of Death Books

Publication Order of St. Ives Books

Publication Order of The Wolves Chronicles Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Picture Books

Publication Order of Plays

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Pan Book of Horror Stories Books

Publication Order of The Year of the Cat Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Joan Aiken
Joan Aiken was born in Mermaid Street on September 4, 1924 in Rye, Sussex. Her dad was Conrad Aiken, an American Pulitzer Prize winning poet. Her sister was Jane Aiken Hodge, a writer, and her brother was a writer and research chemist, named John Aiken. Their mom, Jessie MacDonald, was a Master’s graduate from Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Their marriage dissolved in 1929, and Jessie remarried to Martin Armstrong, an English writer in the year 1930, while Conrad married twice more. Joan, along with John and Jane, wrote Conrad Aiken Remembered, a short appreciation of their dad.

Joan was taught at home by her mom until she was twelve from 1936 until 1940 at Wychwood School for girls in North Oxford. She never attended university. Writing stories from a young age, she finished her first full length novel when she was only sixteen years old and she had her first short story for adults accepted for publication at the age of seventeen. In the year 1941, her first children’s story was broadcasted on the BBC’s Children’s Hour.

Aiken worked from 1943 to 1949 for the United Nations Information Centre in London. She married Ronald George Brown (a journalist that was also working at UNIC), in September 1945. They had two kids together before his passing in the year 1955.

After Joan’s husband died, she joined the magazine Argosy, where she worked in different editorial capacities and learned her trade as a writer. The magazine was one of the many in which she published her short fiction between 1955 and 1960. During this time she published her first two collections of children’s stories and started writing a children’s novel, which was initially called “Bonnie Green”, and was titled “The Wolves of Willoughby Chase” when it was published in 1962.

By this time she was able to work full time as a writer at home, producing two or three books each year for the rest of her life, primarily thrillers and children’s books, as well as many articles, talks and introductions on children’s literature and on Jane Austen’s works.

She participated in the Puffin Book Club’s annual Children’s Literature Summer Camp, which was run by Colony Holidays, the predecessor to ATE Superweeks, along with other such popular kid’s authors like Clive King and Ian Serraillier.

She married Julius Goldstein, a New York landscape painter and teacher. They divided their time between New York and her home, the Hermitage in Petworth, Sussex. He passed away in the year 2001.

In September of 1999, she was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

She died at her home at the age of 79 on January 4, 2004 in Petworth, Sussex. She was survived by her two kids.

Joan lived in a world filled with stories, and her greatest delight was sharing them.

“The Wolves of Willoughby Chase” is the first novel in “The Wolves of Willoughby Chase” series and was released in 1962. Wicked wolves and one grim governess threaten Bonnie and Sylvia (her cousin) when Bonnie’s parents depart Willoughby Chase for their sea voyage.

Left in cruel Miss Slighcarp’s care, the girls can barely believe what is happening to their formerly happy home. The servants get dismissed, the furniture gets sold off, and Sylvia and Bonnie get shipped off to a prison-like orphan school. It appears as if the endless hours of drudgery are never going to end.

With help from Simon the gooseboy and his flock, they are able to escape. However how are they every going to get Willoughby Chase free from the evil Miss Slighcarp’s clutches?

“The Midnight Moropus” is a stand alone novel and was released in 1993. Can Jon locate a ghostly horse that has been extinct for centuries now?

Jon is a lonely orphan that lives on a farm with his adopted parents. When they ask him what he would like for his birthday, he knows immediately: to see the Moropus, which is this prehistoric horse which is furry and big, with claws on its feet instead of hooves. According to the legend, it haunts all the lonely moors at a waterfall which is known as Horse Force since its gushing cascade sounds exactly like the whinny of a mare.

However there is a problem: should Jon wish to see the ghost of this legendary creature, he must visit Horse Force exactly at the stroke of midnight. By himself. Can he strike up enough courage to go there all by himself during the dead of night? Luckily there is a friend that can help him out: Whiskers, his faithful pony!

“The Jewel Seed” is a stand alone novel and was released in 1997. One English orphan unwittingly holds the key to this powerful source of magic.

The graduation ceremony of the Grand and Ancient College of Siberian Witches is held in the wintry darkness of the Far North. However despite such a celebration, the night is filled with worry and warnings. The Wanderer is abroad searching for the coveted Jewel Seed which has been lost for centuries now. Whoever is able to find it first is going to have unlimited power and be able to unlock all knowledge.

At the same time, Nonnie Smith, an orphan, leaves the home that she shares with her grown siblings and grandma in Sesame Green to live in London with her oldest sister Una and her cousins. Her issues start when her old neighbor Mrs. Wednesday comes back from the Siberian witch conference and learns that somebody has taken a mysterious shirt off her clothesline. Nonnie’s certain that the linen blouse belonged to Una, however why is Mrs. Wednesday so very desperate to lay hands on it?

Then Una gets kidnapped, along with famous historical characters like Mozart, Julius Caesar, and Jane Austen. And it’s up to Nonnie and cousin John to outfox Mrs. Wednesday and the Winter People in order to save her.

“The Jewel Seed” is Joan Aiken’s retelling of a tale that her dad used to tell her and her siblings when they were young.