Clive King

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Clive King
BornDavid Clive King
(1924-04-28)28 April 1924
School of Oriental and African Studies
GenreChildren's literature, historical fiction
Notable worksStig of the Dump (1963)

David Clive King (28 April 1924 – 10 July 2018

Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in the last years of the Second World War and then worked for the British Council in a wide range of overseas postings from which he later drew inspiration for some of his novels.[3]

Life and career

Clive King was born in Richmond, then in Surrey, on 28 April 1924 and grew up in Ash in Kent. He was educated at the King's School, Rochester from 1933 to 1941 and then at Downing College, Cambridge, from 1941 to 1943, graduating with a BA in English. From 1943 to 1946 he served as a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, which took him to the Arctic, India, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Australia, Malaya (now Malaysia) and Japan, where he saw the then-recent devastation of Hiroshima.[4]

After leaving the Reserve, King began working for the

School of Oriental and African Studies in London from 1966 to 1967, then served as an education adviser for the East Pakistan Education Centre in Dhaka from 1967 to 1971.[3]

Clive King started writing when he was a child. He once stated that his first story was a script for a Western film.

Macmillan & Co. of New York in 1958. He wrote The Town that Went South (1959), Stig of the Dump (1963) and The 22 Letters (1966) before deciding to become a full-time writer in 1973.[6]
He went on to write another 20 novels between 1972 and 2008, but he is probably best known for Stig of the Dump, which has twice been adapted for television and continues to be taught in British schools.

As a popular children's author King was invited to summer camps for members of the Puffin Book Club Holidays (predecessor to ATE Superweeks), along with other authors such as Ian Serraillier and Joan Aiken.[7]

King was married twice, had three children and lived in Thurlton, Norfolk.[8][9]

Influence

Clive King acknowledged the influence of his itinerant career on his writing: "Each of the things which I have written has been inspired by a particular place which I have visited or lived in. The settings are always as authentic as possible and they determine the action."[10] This influence is noticeable in the settings of The Night The Water Came (relief operations on a tropical island), Snakes and Snakes (India) and The 22 Letters (the Middle East).[3]

Hamid of Aleppo

Giovannetti, follows the adventures of a Syrian Golden Hamster
. Hamid has no idea what sort of creature he is. The camel tells him he is a desert rat; the tortoise calls him a fat cat without a tail. Hamid is busy digging new tunnels in his home in the side of a hill where he unearths many Things. When Hamid leaves his tunnel home he brings with him many of the Things he has found there. After many travels and encounters with other wayfarers, Hamid digs a tunnel which brings him to the surface in the office of the Director of a Museum, who explains to Hamid that he is a Syrian Golden Hamster and that his Things are relics of antiquity. Hamid the Syrian Golden Hamster donates his Things to the Museum and is rewarded.

Stig of the Dump

Stig of the Dump (1963), illustrated by Edward Ardizzone, follows the adventures of a boy who discovers a Stone-Age cave-dweller living at the bottom of a disused chalk pit in Kent that has been used as an unofficial rubbish dump. The concept does not explicitly involve any of the common fantasy devices such as timeslip or magic.[11] The book has been reprinted many times and has been adapted for television twice.[12][13]

The 22 Letters

The 22 Letters (1966), illustrated by Richard Kennedy, was the 250th title published by

horsemanship and alphabetic writing. In its time The 22 Letters was considered, at over 300 pages, to be very long for a children's book, although its scholarship and scope were admired.[11][15]

Bibliography

Fiction

Plays

  • Poles Apart, produced London, 1975
  • The World of Light, produced London, 1976
  • Good Snakes, Bad Snakes 1977
  • Get the Message, produced London, 1987

Other

  • The Birds from Africa, illustrated by Diana Groves. London, Macdonald 1980
  • Bells for Christmas, with songs by Robert Pell, Macdonald Educational 1981

References

  1. ^ "Stig of the Dump author Clive King dies". BBC News. 13 July 2018. Retrieved 13 July 2018.
  2. ^ "King, Clive". WorldCat Identities. Retrieved 5 April 2010.
  3. ^ a b c Crouch, Marcus, "King, (David) Clive" in Twentieth Century Children's Writers, ed. D. L. Kirkpatrick, Macmillan, 2nd edition 1983, pp. 430–31.
  4. ^ "Puffin Books: Author biography". Archived from the original on 23 February 2012. Retrieved 3 February 2010.
  5. ^ "Puffin Books: Author interview". Archived from the original on 23 February 2012. Retrieved 3 February 2010.
  6. ^ "Clive King". www.fantasticfiction.com.
  7. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 7 July 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  8. ^ "Penguin Books: Author biography". Archived from the original on 13 April 2010. Retrieved 3 February 2010.
  9. ^ "Obituary: Eastern Daily Press".
  10. ISBN 0-333-23414-6
    .
  11. ^
    ISBN 0-333-23414-6
    .
  12. ^ "Little Gems – Stig of the Dump". Thechestnut.com. Retrieved 22 October 2009.
  13. ^ "Derby – Around Derby – Derbyshire in TV and Film". BBC. Retrieved 22 October 2009.
  14. ^ Nettell, Stephanie (September 1991). "Kaye Webb and Puffin's 50th" (70). Archived from the original on 11 December 2019. Retrieved 5 April 2010. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  15. ^ The Best Children's Books. 1966.

External links

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