Name David Severn Role Writer | Parents Stanley Unwin | |
Died February 11, 2010, London, United Kingdom Nominations Edgar Award for Best Juvenile People also search for Stanley Unwin, Manfred M. Fischer, Rayner Unwin, Peter Fisher, David M Unwin Books Ponies and Poachers, The Really Big I Know About! Bo, The new book of dinosaurs, Pterosaurs, Mysteries of prehistori | ||
David Severn Top # 7 Facts
David Severn (3 December 1918 – 11 February 2010) was a pseudonym for David Storr Unwin, a British writer. He was the son of publisher Sir Stanley Unwin, of whom Severn wrote a biography in 1982, Fifty Years with Father. He had Who's Who entries throughout his writing career.
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Severn attended Abbotsholme School, Derbyshire, 1933–36, and worked for the League of Nations Secretariat, Geneva (1938), Unwin Brothers (printers), 1939, Blackwells (1940) and George Allen & Unwin (1941-43), having been declared medically unfit for the armed services.
His first series for children (1942-46) featured "Crusoe" Robinson, who was befriended by youngsters in holiday adventures, many featuring a Romany group. The Warner family series followed (1947–52), featuring pheasants, ponies and country life. The scraperboard illustrations of Joan Kiddell-Monroe greatly enhance these two series.
A number of books experimented with the paranormal and time-slip, and can be compared with many modern books revisiting supernatural themes. Drumbeats! has a musical youngster beating a native drum which transports children to a lost expedition to Africa twenty years earlier. Dream Gold shows the hypnotic power of one boy over another, with dreams reliving the conflicts of their ancestors. These are his most interesting books, and the ones he wished to be remembered by. The Future Took Us is a time-slip into 3,000 C.E. The Girl in the Grove, his longest book, is a psychological ghost story. He also produced illustrated books for younger children.
Only his last three books were published by Allen and Unwin.
Books for children as David Severn
(Published in London by The Bodley Head unless indicated, selected titles in New York by Houghton Mifflin 1946-47 and thereafter Macmillan. Popular titles translated into various European languages.)