Eva Ibbotson

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  • Bibliography:
    28 Books
  • First Book:
    April 1975
  • Latest Book:
    August 2020
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About the Author

Eva Ibbotson (born Maria Charlotte Michelle Wiesner, 1925, Vienna, Austria) was a British novelist specializing in romance and children's fantasy. Eva Ibbotson was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1925. When Hitler came into power, Ibbotson's family moved to England. She attended Bedford College, graduating in 1945; Cambridge University from 1946-47; and the University of Durham, from which she graduated with a diploma in education in 1965. Ibbotson had intended to be a physiologist, but was put off by the amount of animal testing that she would have to do. Instead, she married and raised a family, returning to school to become a teacher in the 1960's. Ibbotson was widowed with three sons and a daughter.

Ibottson began writing with the television drama Linda Came Today, in 1965. Ten years later, she published her first novel, The Great Ghost Rescue. Ibbotson has written numerous books including The Secret of Platform 13, Journey to the River Sea, Which Witch?, Island of the Aunts, and Dial-a-Ghost. She won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize for Journey to the River Sea, and has been a runner up for many of major awards for British children's literature. The books are imaginative and humorous, and most of them feature magical creatures and places, despite the fact that she disliked thinking about the supernatural, and created the characters because she wanted to decrease her readers' fear of such things. Some of the books, particularly Journey to the River Sea, also reflect Ibbotson's love of nature. Ibbotson wrote this book in honor of her husband (who had died just before she wrote it), a former naturalist. The book had been in her head for years before she actually wrote it. Ibbotson said she dislikes "financial greed and a lust for power" and often creates antagonists in her books who have these characteristics. Some have been struck by the similarity of "Platform 9 3/4" in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books to Ibbotson's The Secret of Platform 13, which came out three years before the first Harry Potter book. Her love of Austria is evident in works such as The Star Of Kazan and A Song For Summer. These books, set primarily in the Austrian countryside, display the author's love for nature and all things natural.

Book List in Order: 28 titles

  • The Great Ghost Rescue

    What’s a ghost to do? Humphrey is a small ghost with a big problem. His family have lost their home, and they're off to find a new haunting ground. But soon Humphrey and his parents discover that ghosts all over the country are being turned out ...

  • Which Witch?

    WANTED: ONE WILDLY WICKED WITCH TO WED. Arriman the Awful, the handsome Wizard of the North, has decided to marry. But which witch will it be? Arriman devises a contest: whoever performs the darkest piece of magic will become his bride. Belladonna, ...

  • Magic Flutes // The Reluctant Heiress

    She was an exquisite, but penniless, Austrian princess, heiress to fabled Pfaffenstein Castle and expected to marry Prince Maximilian. But Tessa rarely did what was expected. Disguised as a wardrobe mistress, she secretly joined a Vienna opera compan...

  • A Countess Below Stairs // The Secret Countess

    DELIGHTFULLY IMPROPER ROMANCE In the golden days of 1919, the very proper upstairs/downstairs world of Mersham, ancestral home of the very aristocratic Westerholmes, is turned topsy-turvy by the arrival of a totally unsuitable new housemaid...a de...

  • The Worm and the Toffee-Nosed Princess

    A collection of five monster tales. There is the worm of the title, who teaches a very snooty princess a lesson - and eats her. Kraken is a monster whale, who decides to stop moving one day, and turns into an island. And woe betide the sheep who cros...

  • Glove Shop in Vienna and Other Stories

    Those who enjoy romantic fiction will enjoy these heartwarming stories, first published in Great Britain in 1984. Ibbotson concentrates on the infinite variety of Great Love--its discovery, development, recognition, loss, and denouement. Her characte...

  • A Company of Swans

    For nineteen-year-old Harriet Morton, life in 1912 Cambridge is as dry and dull as a biscuit. Her stuffy father and her opressive aunt Louisa allow her only one outlet: ballet. When a Russian ballet master comes to class searching for dancers to fill...

  • The Haunting of Hiram C. Hopgood // The Haunting of Hiram

    American millionaire Hiram C. Hopgood will stop at nothing to make his daughter, Helen, happy -- even if it means buying her an ancient Scottish castle and shipping it back to Texas. Assembling the castle isn’t a problem for the oil tycoon . . . it...

  • Madensky Square

    The world passes through the portals of Susanna Weber's elegant dress shop in Madensky Square--a quaint and peaceful corner of Imperial Vienna. In a glittering time of music and romance, in the final, glorious days before the first World War, the ind...



  • Not Just a Witch

    Hecate Tenbury-Smith, who calls herself Heckie, is an animal witch. Even as a child she could give people whiskery snouts and thick black fur, and so her parents enrolled her in a school for witches -- good witches, that is. Now, a recent graduate, H...

  • The Morning Gift

    A Secret Marriage Twenty-year-old Ruth Berger is desperate. The daughter of a Jewish-Austrian professor, she was supposed to have escaped Vienna before the Nazis marched into the city. Yet the plan went completely wrong, and while her family and fia...

  • The Secret of Platform 13

    WANTED: FOUR CURIOUS CHARACTERS FOR A RISKY MISSION Under Platform 13 in one of London's busiest train stations is an old doorway covered with peeling posters. Behind is the entrance to a magical kingdom -- an island where humans live happily with ...

  • Dial-a-Ghost

    The Dial-a-Ghost Agency finds good homes for ghosts. Bloodstained brides, headless warriors, bloblike ghouls -- ghosts of every sort are matched with living families. There are two doors to the agency's offices: one marked GHOSTS, the other marked PE...

  • A Song for Summer

    Ellen, is raised in London by a suffragist mother and aunts but rejects the liberated life. After graduating from a culinary school, she takes a job in Austria at a run-down boarding school for neglected rich children and transforms it with her beaut...

  • Monster Mission

    A new cover edition of this wonderfully spooky young fiction title from award-winning author of Journey to the River Sea, Eva Ibbotson.We must kidnap some children,'' announced Aunt Etta. ''Young, strong ones. It will be dangerous, but it must be don...

  • Island of the Aunts

    Original title: Monster Mission. WELCOME to the Island of the Aunts! Aunt Etta, Aunt Coral, and Aunt Myrtle need help caring for the mermaids, selkies, and other creatures who live on their hidden island -- and they know that adults can't be tr...

  • Journey to the River Sea

    A girl, a jungle, and a missing inheritance... Sent to live with distant relatives on a rubber plantation in Brazil, Maia must leave her cozy boarding school in London for the unknown wilderness of the Amazon jungle. Accompanied by Miss Minton, a no-...

  • The Haunting of Granite Falls

    Original title: The Haunting of Hiram C. Hopgood. American millionaire Hiram C. Hopgood will stop at nothing to make his daughter, Helen, happy -- even if it means buying her an ancient Scottish castle and shipping it back to Texas. Assembling the...

  • The Star of Kazan

    The adventure of a lifetime Annika has never had a birthday. Instead she celebrates her Found Day, the day a housemaid and a cook to three eccentric Viennese professors found her and took her home. There, Annika has made a happy life in the servants...



  • The Beasts of Clawstone Castle

    Ghosts and cattle and tourists, oh my! When their parents go to America for the summer, Madlyn and Rollo are sent to their great-aunt Emily and great-uncle George at Clawstone Castle, home of the legendary and mysterious Wild White Cattle of Clawsto...

  • The Dragonfly Pool

    'Blending history and tragedy with an irresistible wit and verve.' â€" The TimesThe Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson is an exciting story of friendship and determination during the Second World War, from the award-winning author of Journey to the River...

  • Fairy Treasure

    Connie is not a child who likes books. So she's not too pleased when she's sent to stay with her eccentric author aunt. But then Connie meets Ruby - a book fairy - in the dusty old library. Ruby is in trouble: she has broken fairy law by trying to...

  • The Ogre of Oglefort

    For excitement-hungry orphan Ivo, a mission to save Princess Mirella from the dreaded Ogre of Oglefort is a dream come true. Together with a hag, a wizard, and a troll, Ivo sets out, ready for adventure. But when they get to the ogre's castle, the re...

  • One Dog and His Boy

    Hal is desperate for a dog. "Never!" cries his mother. "Think of the mess, the scratch marks, the puddles on the floor!" But on Hal's birthday, the unbelievable happens. He's allowed to choose a dog of his very own at Easy Pets. The moment he sees th...

  • Let Sleeping Sea-Monsters Lie... and Other Cautionary Tales

    Are you BRAVE enough to find out what happens when a spoilt girl is spiteful to a giant hungry worm? Can you BEAR to watch a (very silly) boy poke an angry sleeping sea-monster? Do you DARE to discover why should you never, ever steal milk from a Fri...

  • The Abominables

    A charming final novel from a beloved writer. When a gentle family of yetis is forced out of their Himalayan paradise by tourism, it's the beginning of an unforgettable road trip adventure. Joined by siblings Con and Ellen, as well as a good-natur...

  • The Christmas Star

    A collection of three wonderfully festive stories from Eva Ibbotson, the bestselling author of Journey to the River Sea. With a beautiful cover by Joe Wilson and inside illustrations, The Christmas Star is a wonderful gift to treasure at Christmas an...

  • Magic Flutes

    Originally published as The Reluctant Heiress, The Magic Flutes is a beautiful, classic story of romance, intrigue and opera, by the award-winning Eva Ibbotson. Now reissued with a brand-new cover.In the spring of 1922, young Austrian Princess Ther...

Award-Winning Books by Eva Ibbotson

Magic Flutes // The Reluctant Heiress
1983 RoNA -- Romantic Novel of the Year


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Eva Ibbotson has published 28 books.

Eva Ibbotson does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, Magic Flutes, was published in August 2020.

The first book by Eva Ibbotson, The Great Ghost Rescue, was published in April 1975.

No. Eva Ibbotson does not write books in series.
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