Name John Townsend Role Writer | Died March 24, 2014 Education Leeds Grammar School | |
 | ||
Awards Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Books Noah's Castle, Written for Children, The Intruder, Gumble's Yard, Tom Tiddler's Ground Similar People Rosemary Sutcliff, Keith Laumer, Edward Eager | ||
John Rowe Townsend (22 May 1922 – 24 March 2014) was a British children's writer and children's literature scholar. His best-known children's novel is The Intruder, which won a 1971 Edgar Award, and his best-known academic work is Written for Children: An Outline of English Language Children's Literature (1965), the definitive work of its time on the subject.
Biography
Townsend was born in Leeds and educated at Leeds Grammar School and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. His popular works include Gumble's Yard, his debut novel published in 1961; Widdershins Crescent (1965); and The Intruder (1969), which won the 1971 Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery from the Mystery Writers of America. In Britain, The Intruder was adapted as a children's TV series starring Milton Johns as the stranger.
Also in Britain, Noah's Castle was filmed by Southern Television, narrated by character Barry Mortimer (Simon Gipps-Kent), and transmitted in seven 25-minute episodes in 1980.