In the same year she married John Burrow, a scholar of medieval literature, with whom she had three sons, Richard, Michael and Colin. After attending the Friends School Saffron Walden, she studied English at St Anne's College in Oxford, where she attended lectures by both C. There, Jones and her two younger sisters Isobel (later Professor Isobel Armstrong, the literary critic) and Ursula (later an actress and a children's writer) spent a childhood left chiefly to their own devices. In 1943 her family finally settled in Thaxted, Essex, where her parents worked running an educational conference centre. When war was announced, shortly after her fifth birthday, she was evacuated to Wales, and thereafter moved several times, including periods in Coniston Water, in York, and back in London. She was Paul Zelinsky's older daughter's favorite author in elementary school.Diana was born in London, the daughter of Marjorie (née Jackson) and Richard Aneurin Jones, both of whom were teachers. Her books for children and adults, including the popular Chrestomanci series, won awards around the world.

But she doesn't know what she is in for, as Earwig learns, with the help of Thomas, a talking cat, to give her mistress some of her own medecine.Įarwig and the Witch is the last novel written by Diana Wynne Jones (1934-2011), one of Britain's top fantasy and science fiction writers. Morwald staff, who found the baby Earwig on their doorstep with a cryptic note pinned to her clothing.Įarwig's happiness faces a major challenge when the raggety-ribby-faced Bella Yaga and her towering husband the Mandrake come to the orphanage looking for a child to adopt-and they choose Earwig! Bella Yaga thinks she is getting a menial servant to help her mix her potions for neighborhood clients. But this is a fact not known to Earwig herself, and only guessed at by the St. She seems to get her way with anything and anybody, a quality that might well derive from her mother's having been a witch. Young Earwig has always found life much to her liking at St. “delightfully odd characters and eccentric magic” -starred review, PW

“…utterly charming chapter book… illustrated with marvelous vitality”

Diana wynne jones earwig and the witch