Peter Dickinson - Life and Work

Life and Work

Dickinson was born in Livingstone, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), but his parents moved back to England so that he and his brothers could attend English schools: Dickinson was at Eton College from 1941 to 1946. After completing his National Service (1946–48), he studied at King's College, Cambridge, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1951. For seventeen years, from 1952–1969, he worked as assistant editor, resident poet and reviewer for Punch magazine.

Dickinson has written almost fifty books, which fall into three general categories: mysteries for adults (including the James Pibble series), novels for younger readers (many of which have a fantastic or supernatural element), and a few simpler children's books. One of his few other books was the collection Chance, Luck and Destiny (1975), which he calls "prose and verse, fact and fiction, on the themes of the title". It won the the second annual Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for children's nonfiction in 1977.

The "Changes" trilogy comprises three early books for children, The Weathermonger, Heartsease and The Devil's Children (1968 to 1970). It was heavily adapted in 1975 as a BBC TV series, The Changes. The trilogy was written in reverse order: The Devil's Children is actually the first book in terms of the trilogy's chronology, Heartsease the second, and The Weathermonger the third.

Dickinson's first two mysteries both won the Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger, Skin Deep in 1968 and A Pride of Heroes in 1969. He has been at least as successful with his children's books. He won the 1977 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize for The Blue Hawk, an award judged by British children's writers, which no author may win twice. For Tulku (1979) he won both the Whitbread Children's Book Award and finally the Carnegie Medal after being a commended runner up three times. He won the Carnegie again next year for City of Gold. In 1982 he was named to the International Board of Books for Young People Honor List for Tulku, and The Iron Lion was selected one of New York Times Notable Books. Eva (1988) was a runner up for both the Carnegie (highly commended) and the U.S. Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. Twenty years later it won the Phoenix Award from Children's Literature Association annual Phoenix Award as the best children's book published twenty years earlier that did not win a major contemporary award. Dickinson and The Seventh Raven (1981) had won the same award several years earlier. The Kin (1998) made the Whitbread Award shortlist.

City of Gold and other stories from the Old Testament (Gollancz, 1980), illustrated by Michael Foreman, was a "radical" retelling of 33 stories, according to the retrospective online Carnegie Medal citation. "It is set in a time before the Bible was written down, when its stories where handed from generation to generation by the spoken word." Illustrator Foreman was highly commended runner up for the Library Association's companion Kate Greenaway Medal.

A pair of alternative history novels, King and Joker (1976) and Skeleton-in-Waiting (1989), are based on the premise that Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence survives and ultimately reigns as Victor I of England.

A collection of his own previously published and new poetry, The Weir: Poems by Peter Dickinson, was published on the occasion of his 80th birthday in 2007, as a gift from his four children.

His latest work is Earth and Air (2012), to published by Big Mouth House, USA, adding to the "Tales of Elemental Spirits" stories which he co-wrote with Robin McKinley. Dickinson married Mary Rose Barnard in 1953; the couple had two sons (one the author, John Dickinson) and two daughters. As of 2009 there are six grandchildren.

He is now (2009) married to married to Robin McKinley, an American author of fantasy, some written for children. She concedes that she cannot judge the literary work of people she likes personally. "Fortunately I had been passionately devoted to his books years before I met him so I can merely go on thinking they're wonderful and he's brilliant now."

Dickinson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours.