British novelist Peter Dickinson was born December 16, 1927, in Livingstone, Northern Rhodesia, which was then an African territory of Britain and is now the independent nation of Zambia. At the age of seven Dickinson moved with his family to the West Country of England, where he began his formal education at an English boarding school. Dickinson specialized in Latin and Greek at Eton College from 1941 to 1946, served a brief term in the British army from 1946 to 1948, and then attended King's College, Cambridge University, where he took a degree in English literature in 1951. Dickinson worked as an editor and reviewer for the British magazine Punch until 1969, when he devoted himself full-time to his literary career.

In 1968 Dickinson published two novels—Skin Deep, an adult mystery, and his first novel for younger readers, an adventure tale entitled The Weathermonger, which was expanded in following years to...