Contemporary children's fantasy has its own conventions and standards, often unacknowledged but recognized by those who write or publish fantasy. Diana Wynne Jones has built her reputation on challenging those conventions, standing them on their heads, and openly criticizing them. Instinctively hostile to rules, Jones employs her unbounded inventiveness to create fantasy worlds that break the conventions and show her readers the world from a new and imaginative angle. Jones specializes in surprising plot twists and slapstick humor, which she combines with scenes of serious drama. Like Margaret Mahy, Jones believes that fantasy is the ideal medium to unveil psychological truth.

Diana Wynne Jones was born in London on 16 August 1934, the first child of Richard Aneurin Jones and Marjorie Jones. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Jones and her younger sister Isobel were evacuated to their grandmother's house in Wales, where they were soon joined by...