Joan Aiken

Author Information
Joan Aiken's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    124 Books (5 Series)
  • First Book:
    May 1922
  • Latest Book:
    May 2020
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About the Author

09/04/1924-01/04/2004)
Daughter of Pulitzer Prize- winning poet Conrad Aiken and younger sister of author of Jane Aiken Hodge.

Full Series List in Order

Arabel and Mortimer

1 - Arabel's Raven (Apr-1972)
2 - Arabel, Mortimer and the Escaped Black Mamba (Jan-1989)
3 - The Bread Bin // Mortimer's Bread Bin (Apr-1974)
4 - Mortimer's Tie (Sep-1976)
5 - Mortimer and the Sword Excalibur (Jan-1979)
6 - The Spiral Stair (Jan-1979)
7 - The Mystery of Mr. Jones's Disappearing Taxi (Sep-1988)
8 - Mortimer's Portrait on Glass (Sep-1988)
9 - Mortimer's Cross (Jan-1983)
10 - Mortimer Says Nothing and Other Stories (Jan-1985)
11 - Mortimer and Arabel (Oct-1992)
12 - Mortimer's Mine (Sep-1994)
Arabel and Mortimer (Jul-1983)

Felix Brooke

1 - Go Saddle the Sea (Oct-1977)
2 - Bridle the Wind (Nov-1983)
3 - The Teeth of the Gale (Oct-1988)

Jane Austen sequels

1 - Mansfield Revisited (Mar-1985)
2 - Jane Fairfax (Sep-1990)
3 - Eliza's Daughter (May-1994)
4 - Emma Watson (Sep-1996)
4 - The Watsons and Emma Watson (Jan-1997)
5 - Lady Catherine's Necklace (Apr-2000)

Paget Family

1 - The Smile of the Stranger (Jan-1978)
2 - The Lightning Tree // The Weeping Ash (Jan-1980)
3 - The Young Lady from Paris // Girl from Paris (Apr-1982)

Wolves Chronicles

1 - The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (1963)
2 - Black Hearts in Battersea (Jun-1960)
3 - Nightbirds on Nantucket (Jun-1966)
4 - The Stolen Lake (Sep-1981)
5 - Dangerous Games // Limbo Lodge (Feb-1999)
6 - The Cuckoo Tree (Sep-1971)
7 - Dido and Pa (Aug-1986)
8 - Is // Is Underground (May-1922)
9 - Cold Shoulder Road (Nov-1995)
10 - Midwinter Nightingale (Jun-2003)
11 - The Witch of Clatteringshaws (Jan-2005)
Whispering Mountain (Jan-1968)

Multi-Author Series List

Fairytale Retellings: Snow White

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Oct-2002)

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

Lady Catherine's Necklace (Apr-2000)

Jane Austen's Mansfield Park

Mansfield Revisited (Mar-1985)

Jane Austen's Emma

Jane Fairfax (Sep-1990)

Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility

Eliza's Daughter (May-1994)

Book List in Order: 124 titles

  • Is // Is Underground

    Wolves Chronicles - 8

    The children of London are disappearing -- can Is solve the mystery before she vanishes too? Is Twite, younger sister of the daring Dido, is on a desperate mission. An uncle she never knew just showed up at the cottage she shares with her sister Penn...

  • All You've Ever Wanted

    in All & More (Anthology)

    Joan Aiken's first published book, All You've Ever Wanted is a collection of nineteen short stories. What use is an iron that turns everything to gold? How can you get rid of a ghostly governess who makes you do homework all night? What would...

  • More Than You Bargained For

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    Joan Aiken's second book, More Than You Bargained For, is a collection of fourteen short stories, featuring a bargain birthday present that turns out to be magical, a family tree that grows inside the house, and a princess who falls in love with ...

  • Smoke from Cromwell's Time and Other Stories

    A collection of short stories from the prolific children's author. Includes: Smoke From Cromwell's Time / A Small Pinch of Weather / The River Boy / All You've Ever Wanted / The Lilac in the Lake / The Rocking Donkey / The King Who Stood ...

  • The Kingdom and the Cave

    'The Under People. They live in a huge Cave. They are thought to be boring upwards. Giant worms and flying ants. Underground magic.' Mickle, the palace cat, knows the kingdom is in danger. He can feel it in his whiskers and he has found a mysteriou...

  • Black Hearts in Battersea

    Wolves Chronicles - 2

    In this hilarious classic adventure, an innocent boy and his friends must stop a plot to topple the King of England. Simon, the foundling from The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, arrives in London to meet an old friend and pursue the study of painting. I...

  • The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy
    Wolves Chronicles - 1

    In this chilling beginning to The Wolves Chronicles, two little cousins are left in the care of an evil governess. They escape and travel 400 miles to London with their friend Simon and his geese. A sad and sinister howling arose. It was the far-off ...

  • The Silence of Herondale

    • / Historical Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    Deborah Lindsay sought peace and security when she accepted the post of governess to a teenage girl. Instead she found terror and murder. Isolated in the Gilmartin ancestral home in Herondale, Deborah and young Carreen were left to face a nameless...

  • The Fortune Hunters

    The House of Secrets After her father died, Anette moved to a beautiful house by the sea and tried to forget. Against her will she found herself drawn into the social life of the town. Much to her surprise, she fell in love with a famous artist. B...



  • Trouble With Product X // Beware of the Bouquet

    In The Shadow. It had begun like a routine, uneventful assignment -- accompanying the agency film crew on location in Cornwall. It might, Martha Gilroy hoped, even help her forget Lucian, the man she had loved and lost. But high on the rocky Cornwall...

  • Nightbirds on Nantucket

    Wolves Chronicles - 3

    Having had enough of life on board the ship that saved her from a watery grave, Dido Twite wants nothing more than to sail home to England. Instead, Captain Casket's ship lands in Nantucket, where Dido and the captain's daughter, Dutiful Penitence, a...

  • Hate Begins at Home // Dark Interval

    TRIAL BY TERROR Her young life shadowed by tragedy, lovely Caroline Conroy was forced against her will to return to her father’s lonely manor house -- Woodhue. She hated to leave her husband for even a few days -- and she feared Woodhue House...

  • The Ribs of Death // The Crystal Crow

    Aulis had been reluctant to recuperate in Cornwall but she soon found herself enchanted by the dreamy seascape and magnetically drawn to Charles Foley, although he had only a year to live. But uneasiness soon gnawed at Aulis' peace of mind. Eleanor, ...

  • A Necklace of Raindrops and Other Stories

    Here are eight gloriously imaginative stories for eight satisfying sessions of bedtime reading. There’s a flying apple pie, a cat that’s bigger than an elephant, a house that lays an egg, storybook animals that leap out of their books at night, a...

  • Whispering Mountain

    Wolves Chronicles

    In the small town of Pennygaff, where Owen has been sent to live after his mother’s death, a legendary golden harp has been found. Knowing of the prophesy of the Harp of Teirtu, Owen must prevent the magic harp from falling into the evil clutches o...

  • Armitage, Armitage, Fly Away Home

    A collection of short stories, including: Prelude / Yes, But Today Is Tuesday / The Frozen Cuckoo / Sweet Singeing in the Choir / Harriet's Hairloom / The Ghostly Governess / The Land of Trees and Heroes / The Stolen Quince Tree / A Batch of Magi...

  • Night Fall

    Haunted by a recurrent nightmare, a young English girl travels to Cornwall to trace the source of the dream. Return to Penlaggen Many years had passed since Meg Frazier last saw the isolated village of Penlaggen and the great, half-ruined man...

  • The Windscreen Weepers and Other Tales of Horror, Suspense & Fantasy

    in The Windscreen Weepers and Other Tales of Horror, Suspense & Fantasy

    A collection of stories originally published in journals and magazines like Argosy and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Contents include: Marmalade Wine / Belle of the Ball / Mrs. Considine / Follow My Fancy / Dead Language Master / A Train Full ...

  • Girl's Choice

    in Girl's Choice

    A new book of stories. Illustrated by Jeannette Giblin....



  • A Small Pinch of Weather and Other Stories

    Anything is magically possible in these twelve short stories by gifted storyteller, Joan Aiken. Imagine ordering a sunny day from the local weather witch, asking an appletree to answer the telephone and making a beautiful garden out of old cereal box...

  • The Embroidered Sunset

    The two old ladies had lived there together for so long that even their friends found it difficult to tell them apart. One thing was certain, however: one of them was dead (murdered?) and the other had disappeared. To unravel the tangles for herse...

  • The Green Flash and Other Tales of Horror, Suspense, and Fantasy

    in The Green Flash and Other Tales of Horror, Suspense, and Fantasy

    A collections of suspenseful short stories from Joan Aiken, including: Mrs. Considine / Marmalade Wine / Sonata for Harp and Bicycle / The Dreamers / Follow My Fancy / Smell / Searching for Summer / A View of the Heath / Belle of the Ball / Summer By...

  • The Cuckoo Tree

    Wolves Chronicles - 6

    When Dido Twite sets foot back on English soil, more mischief awaits. As her friend Captain Hughes recovers from a carriage accident, Dido stays at the Dogkennel Cottages and meets the odd inhabitants of Tegleaze Manor: strange old Lady Tegleaze, her...

  • The Kingdom Under the Sea and Other Stories

    in The Kingdom Under the Sea and Other Stories

    A collection of eleven fairy tales from eastern Europe retold by a noted English author....

  • The Butterfly Picnic // A Cluster of Separate Sparks

    An idyllic, sun-drenched Greek island ... a fortified palace whose ancient walls hid dark and dangerous secrets ... a sardonic millionaire with bizarre tastes and lavish charities ... a disappearing sailboat ... a vanishing corpse ... a gaunt and gui...

  • A Harp of Fishbones and Other Stories

    in The Harp of Fishbones and Other Stories

    A collection of stories from master story-teller Joan Aiken. Contents include: A Harp of Fishbones / The Boy With a Wolf's Foot / Mrs. Nutti's Fireplace / Hope / The Lost Five Minutes / The Rose of Puddle Fratrum / The Jar of Cobblestones / A...

  • Died on a Rainy Sunday

    A temporary job with Folia Films seems like a lifeline for Jane Drummond. A chance to escape from money worries, a husband who acts like a stranger -- and the unsettling presence of Tom Roland, a one-time colleague to whom she feels uncomfortably att...

  • Arabel's Raven

    Arabel and Mortimer - 1

    Four-year-old Arabel Jone's life is changed forever when her father, a taxi driver, brings home an injured bird he finds in the street. Arabel falls in love at first sight, and names the bird Mortimer. This wacky raven eats everything in sight, a...

  • Winterthing



  • The Mooncusser's Daughter

  • Not What You Expected: A Collection of Stories

    in Not What You Expected: A Collection of Stories

  • Midnight Is a Place

    • / General Fiction
    • Buy Buy

    Lucas Bell is lonely and miserable at Midnight Court, a vast, brooding house owned by his intolerable guardian, Sir Randolph Grimsby. When a mysterious carriage brings a visitor to the house, Lucas hopes he's found a friend at last. But the newcomer,...

  • The Bread Bin // Mortimer's Bread Bin

    Arabel and Mortimer - 3

    Mortimer the Raven is causing yet more chaos and mayhem in Rumbury town. Things get even worse when Arabel takes Mortimer roller-skating with her three nasty cousins Cindy, Mindy and Lindy....

  • All But a Few

    in All But a Few

  • Voices in an Empty House

    A boy with a serious heart condition takes the decision that he wants to die, and disappears from home. While his family are searching for him, they receive a ransom note from men claiming they have kidnapped the boy....

  • The Skin Spinners

  • Castle Barebane

    Near the top of a three-hundred-foot crag perched a roofless ruin with crumbling battlements and shattered buttresses....Apart from the ruined castle there seemed to be no other sign of human life, unless you counted a couple of fishing boats well ou...

  • Mortimer's Tie

    Arabel and Mortimer - 4

  • A Bundle of Nerves

    A collection of horror stories for young adult readers. The stories are: 1. Cricket, 2. The Man Who Had Seen the Rope Trick, 3. Do You Dig Grieg, 4. Belle of the Ball, 5. Five Green Moons, 6. Smell, 7. Furry Night, 8. As Gay as Cheese, 9. Sultan'...



  • The Far Forests: Tales of Romance, Fantasy, and Suspense

    in The Far Forests: Tales of Romace, Fantasy, and Suspense

    A collection of short stories, including: Lodging for the Night / Postman's Knock / As Gay As Cheese / Furry Night / Five Green Moons / Sultan's Splash / The Far Forests / The Story About Caruso / The Rented Swan / Safe and Soundproof / Crick...

  • The Five-Minute Marriage

    Warner Regency - 1

    "Marry Me!" That is what her cousin Gareth asked Delphie Carteret to do. It was just a make-believe ceremony, and, in exchange, Delphie's ailing mother would receive an annuity for life. Delphie was in no position to refuse. She was already los...

  • Last Movement

    • / Historical Mystery
    • Buy Buy

    Mike Meiklejohn, an aspiring English stage designer, brings her mother to Greece to recuperate from an accident, there she becomes a hostage as police close in on a murderer. She had to wait a moment or two, then the door was puller open very sudd...

  • The Faithless Lollybird and Other Stories

    in The Faithless Lollybird and Other Stories

    A collection of magical stories, including: Moonshine In the Mustard Pot / The Cat Who Lived In a Drainpipe / A Handful of Dark Blue Fur / The Night the Stars Were Gone / The Faithless Lollybird / Kiss Your Hand to the Magpie / The Looking-Glass Tree...

  • Go Saddle the Sea

    Felix Brooke - 1

    Across the stormy sea, destiny awaits.... Felix Brooke, the orphaned son of an English soldier and an aristocratic Spanish mother, has been raised in his grandfather's strict, loveless household in Villaverde, Spain. When Felix gains possession of a ...

  • The Smile of the Stranger

    Paget Family - 1
    Warner Regency - 10

    He looked so like her hero, Charles the First, that it was easy to fall in love -- and into trouble. She shopped along the Ponte Vecchio. She spoke Italian and French with fluency and knew more English history than many a girl born and reared in ...

  • Tale of a One-Way Street and Other Stories

    We are taken to peculiar lands where all the magical things that only seem to happen in dreams really do happen. We meet strange creatures by going the wrong way up a one-way street. We learn about what a peculiar muddle your presents can get into wh...

  • Street

  • Mice & Mendelson: Stories

    The hilarious adventures of an elderly pony named Mr. Mendelson and his 2 piano-playing field mice friends  In a wild, remote place called Midnight Park, there lives an elderly Orkney pony named Mr. Mendelson. He is only 3 feet tall, is black al...

  • Mortimer and the Sword Excalibur

    Arabel and Mortimer - 5

    This is the fifth title to be published by Barn Owl about Arabel and her beloved but impossible raven, Mortimer. An enormous hole is being dug in the park and rumour has it that King Arthur's round table is buried there. None of this interests Mortim...



  • The Spiral Stair

    Arabel and Mortimer - 6

    One of the novels featuring Arabel and her raven, Mortimer. With Noah the boa using his coils to work the doughnut machine, and with the three giraffes all tangled up on the spiral stair, Mortimer's first night in a zoo was one to be remembered f...

  • A Touch of Chill: Tales for Sleepless Nights

    The homely and the exotic mix in fifteen unique tales. The macabre and witty stories are a melange of horror guaranteed to send chills up the spine of any sleepless reader. Tales include: The cat flap and the apple pie.--"He".--Time to laugh.-...

  • The Lightning Tree // The Weeping Ash

    Paget Family - 2

    Two extraordinary tales, and many fates, intertwine in this magnificent novel of India and England in the last years of the eighteenth century. Sixteen-year-old Fanny Paget, newly married to the odious Captain Paget, had come to live with him and...

  • The Shadow Guests

    After the mysterious disappearance of both his mother and older brother, Cosmo is sent away to live with his eccentric mathematician aunt. Lonely and confused, Cosmo must also deal with being the new kid at school. Not an easy assignment! But things ...

  • A Whisper in the Night: Tales of Terror and Suspense

    Thirteen tales blending the commonplace and the bizarre focus on the encounters of young people with the supernatural as in the tale of an unpopular student who masters the powers of a ghostly artifact to seek refuge in a happier time....

  • The Stolen Lake

    Wolves Chronicles - 4

    In this fantasy adventure, a young girl visits a land where birds carry off men, fish eat human flesh, and she must rescue a pilfered lake. Readers who have followed Dido Twite’s escapades in Black Hearts in Battersea and Nightbirds on Nantucket wi...

  • The Young Lady from Paris // Girl from Paris

    Paget Family - 3

    Ellen Paget, a young Englishwoman, comes to Paris in 1860 to be governess to a young noble family, but shortly thereafter, tragedy and scandal force her to return to her father's house in Sussex under far-from-happy circumstances. To save her ...

  • Mortimer's Cross

    Arabel and Mortimer - 9

    Arabel’s Great Aunt Olwen causes trouble by spring cleaning Mortimer and posting him off to a research station by mistake. Soon Mortimer is up a radio tower sending messages to outer space....

  • Foul Matter

    Depleted by a passionate life brimming with love and lovers, free-spirited Clytie Churchill becomes haunted by the shadows of her past until a harrowing experience, when she is held captive with a French doctor, transforms her...

  • Arabel and Mortimer

    Arabel and Mortimer

    Three adventures of a little girl, Arabel, and her pet raven, Mortimer. MORTIMER’S TIE (Arabel and Mortimer, Bk 4) The Jones Family are offered a cruise to Spain on a luxury liner, but things go wrong when Mortimer's favourite green tie is blow...

  • The Kitchen Warriors

    A secret village of elves living in the cupboard must fend off vacuum witches and deep-freeze trolls in the battles of the kitchen wars The people who live in the house have no idea that an entire village of elves resides in their china cupboard, beh...

  • Bridle the Wind

    Felix Brooke - 2

    A JOURNEY GUIDED BY FATE Shipwrecked, knocked unconscious, and imprisoned! To some this may seem like a streak of mighty bad luck, but Felix Brooke can't help but believe there is a reason for all his suffering. When Felix finds an injured boy on th...

  • Fog Hounds, Wind Cat, Sea Mice: Three Stories

    A trio of fantasy and adventure tales by the award-winning author of the beloved Wolves Chronicles In “Fog Hounds,” Tad and his sister, Ermina, know better than to venture outside after dusk. Twilight is the time when huge misty creatures ro...

  • Up the Chimney Down and Other Stories

    The last chimney cuckoo -- Miss Hotting's legacy -- The gift-giving -- The dog on the roof -- The missing heir -- Up the chimney down -- Christmas at Troy -- The midnight rose -- The happiest sheep in London -- The fire dogs -- Potter's gray....

  • Mortimer Says Nothing and Other Stories

    Arabel and Mortimer - 10

    Four new Arabel and Mortimer stories, not published singly. More wild and wonderful adventures for Arabel and her pet raven Mortimer with a bad cat, an army of mice, a telephone prankster, a very unrestful holiday for Mr. Jones, and Arabel's horri...

  • Mansfield Revisited

    Jane Austen sequels - 1
    Jane Austen's Mansfield Park

    Some of them belonged to the elegance and intrigue of Mansfield Park... others could not stay away Mary -- the charming, duplicitous lady, determined to defy her fatal illness and to find a match for her bachelor brother... Henry -- the ever-fi...

  • The Last Slice of Rainbow and Other Stories

    A collection of nine magical tales about strange lands inhabited by princesses and kelpies. Stories about everyday places where magical and mysterious things happen to ordinary children, include an oak tree falling in love with a girl and a boy's...

  • Past Eight O'Clock: Goodnight Stories

    All these delightful stories are concerned with sleeping and waking, dreams, and night time, and around each tale is woven the theme of a familiar lullaby or bedtime song. There are also many memorable characters - helpful crows, a malicious kelpi...

  • Dido and Pa

    Wolves Chronicles - 7

    Readers who have followed Dido Twite's escapades in Black Hearts in Battersea and Nightbirds on Nantucket will welcome her return in another wild adventure. Dido Twite is finally back home in London and reunited with her old friend Simon, now the ...

  • Deception // If I Were You

    Joan Aiken's last 19th century romance tells the story of two identical but unrelated schoolfriends finishing the education at the Abbey school, Reading. Alvey, one of the two girls, agrees to impersonate the other in order to find herself a refu...

  • A Goose on Your Grave: Stories of Horror, Suspense & Fantasy

    in A Goose on Your Grave: Stories of Horror, Suspense & Fantasy

    A Goose on Your Grave: Stories of Horror, Suspense and Fantasy. The collection as a whole feels cohesive; there are recurring themes such as time travel, the capabilities of the human mind to create and accept the extraordinary, a love of animals, pa...

  • The Moon's Revenge

    Seeking to become the best fiddler in the land, a boy angers the Moon, who seeks revenge by making his sister mute, but when a monster threatens the land, it is only the boy's music that can subdue it and restore his sister's voice. The Mo...

  • Mortimer's Portrait on Glass

    Arabel and Mortimer - 8

    A holiday in Ireland leads to more extraordinary adventures for Mortimer and Arabel, this time including an iceberg and a dinosaur!...

  • The Mystery of Mr. Jones's Disappearing Taxi

    Arabel and Mortimer - 7

    More mysterious goings on in Rumbury Town, things are disappearing, including Mr. Jones's taxi. Mortimer solves the mystery in his usual crazy way....

  • The Teeth of the Gale

    Felix Brooke - 3

    Kidnapped! Felix Brooke has been summoned for a risky mission: to recover the kidnapped children of Dona Conchita, the cousin of his old friend Juana. But these are dangerous times in Spain, and the mission could be a trap. Felix warily sets off with...

  • Arabel, Mortimer and the Escaped Black Mamba

    Arabel and Mortimer - 2

    When The Jones' Decide To Go To A Ball, Arabel And Her Raven Mortimer Are Left To Be Looked After By Chris Cross. All Is Well Until Mortimer Spills The Last Drop Of Milk In The House. They Go Off In Search Of A Carton Of Milk, Their Absence Spark...

  • Give Yourself a Fright

    in Give Yourself a Fright

    Readers beware! Mischievous ghosts, ancient curses, and monstrous spirits inhabit these thirteen spine-tingling tales. Enter a world of fantasy where a blast of a whistle brings a boy from the past, where a ghostly awl perches night after night at th...

  • Blackground

    Actress Cat Conwill has landed the lead part in Middlemarch being filmed by Pyramid Television on location at Knoyle Court. The estate's owner Lord James Tybold Fortuneswell appears and is smitten by Cat, who has been transformed into a silver blonde...

  • Voices // Return to Harken House

    In the 1930's eleven-year-old Julia goes to spend the summer with her playwright father and finds that he has abandoned her to the care of her pre-occupied stepmother who seems unaware of the strange voices that haunt Julia every night....

  • The Erl King's Daughter

    Kimballs Green Junior School’s newest student is more than a little strange -- in fact, she might be the feared daughter of the Erl King! Kevin loves sharing the stories his grandmother used to tell him about trolls and witches with his school frie...

  • A Foot in the Grave: and Other Ghost Stories

    A collection of eerie tales illustrated with black-and-white images conjures up truly believable ghosts and lets them loose in modern settings with frightening results. Stories include: • Cold Harbour • Movable Eyes • Beezelbub's Baby...

  • A Fit of Shivers

    Ten short stories with elements of horror or the supernatural, including: Number Four, Bowstring Lane Earrings An L-Shaped Grave Something Birthday Gifts The Rose-Garden Dream Watkyn, Comma The Shrieking Door Cousin Alice The Leg...

  • Jane Fairfax

    Jane Austen sequels - 2
    Jane Austen's Emma

    Here, headstrong, self-important Emma Woodhouse is pushed from center stage as the limelight falls on the childhood and maturation of her foil. Orphaned Jane is brought up by her shabby-genteel aunt and grandmother in Highbury, near the Woodhouse fam...

  • The Shoemaker's Boy

    The Shoemaker's boy works alone in his father's shop, when his father goes off on a long quest to find a way to cure his wife's mysterious illness. At night Jem has some strange and frightening experiences. He has three strange visitors a...

  • The Haunting of Lamb House

    Three interlocking ghost stories that, together, span two centuries. In a gracious Georgian house in Mermaid Street, Rye, can be sensed a disturbed alien presence, a restless spirit that seems to be pleading for some service to be performed. In 1...

  • Morningquest

    • / Traditional Regency
    • Buy Buy

    When young Pandora Crumbe's mother dies suddenly at the luncheon table, Pandora falls into the care of Lady Mariana Morningquest and finds herself taking on an essential role in her new family....

  • Mortimer and Arabel

    Arabel and Mortimer - 11

    A zany adventure featuring Arabel Jones and her mischievous pet raven, Mortimer. When neighbourhood gardens are mysteriously sabotaged just days before the judging of the Rumbury Town Gala, everyone agrees that Mortimer is bound to be at the bottom o...

  • Peer Behind the Scene

    in All Hallows' Eve

    In All Hallows' Eve, gifted writers have concocted a Regency witches' cauldron of romance and shadows, love and laughter, horror and delight. Joan Aiken's story conjures a peer's ghost who wreaks destruction on a modern guest-house; lovers invoke ...

  • The Midnight Moropus

    Can Jon find a ghostly horse that’s been extinct for centuries? Jon is a lonely orphan who lives on a farm with his adopted parents. When they ask what he’d like for his birthday, Jon knows immediately: to see the Moropus, a prehistoric horse tha...

  • Haunting Christmas Tales

    A terrific stocking stuffer, here is a collection of nine original, spooky Christmas tales--each a compelling page-turner--from bestselling writers including Newbery Medal-winner Joan Aiken....

  • Eliza's Daughter

    Jane Austen sequels - 3
    Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility

    A Young Woman Longing for Adventure and an Artistic Life... Because she's an illegitimate child, Eliza is raised in the rural backwater with very little supervision. An intelligent, creative, and free-spirited heroine, unfettered by the strictures...

  • Mortimer's Mine

    Arabel and Mortimer - 12

    A simple novel intended for young readers who are ready to move on from picture books to something slightly more demanding. Based on the BBC puppet drama series featuring Arabel Jones and her pet raven, Mortimer, the story tells what happens when a m...

  • The Winter Sleepwalker

    in The Winter Sleepwalker and Other Stories

    These fairytales are like no others. The "Winter Sleepwalker and Other Stories" will introduce you to sea kings and witches, princesses and giant pink snakes. From Martian monsters dumped on Earth to football played in space, there's magi...

  • A Creepy Company

    Here are ten ghastly, ghostly, weird and witty tales from a master of suspense, Joan Aiken. Each macabre story takes readers from the everyday world to the fantastic, creating a collection full of delightful shivers that will hold readers spellbound....

  • Cold Shoulder Road

    Wolves Chronicles - 9

    Having freed the children enslaved in the northern mines, Is Twite and her cousin Arun return to Folkestone to find Arun's mother. But she has disappeared without a trace. There's plenty of evidence of strange goings-on now that the Channel Tunnel is...

  • A Handful of Gold

    in A Handful of Gold

    A collection of Joan Aiken stories, including: All You've Ever Wanted / The Rocking Donkey / The People In the Castle / Miss Hooting's Legacy / The Third Wish / A Harp of Fishbones / The Serial Garden / The Dark Streets of Kimball's Green...

  • Dead Man's Lane

    in Dead Man's Lane

  • The Cockatrice Boys

    What does a cockatrice enjoy most for dinner? Anyone it can find. So the alarmed inhabitants of England discover when a plague of monsters -- known as cockatrices -- invade their country and begin gobbling them up. They must be stopped! A plucky b...

  • Emma Watson

    Jane Austen sequels - 4

    Jane Austen wrote the untitled fragment that was later called The Watsons in 1803-5, and it was published posthumously in 1871. Joan Aiken, well known for her Jane Austen sequels and children's books, finishes the fragment, introducing a new hero and...

  • The Watsons and Emma Watson

    Jane Austen sequels - 4

    Jane Austen wrote the untitled fragment that was later called The Watsons in 1803-5, and it was published posthumously in 1871. Joan Aiken, well known for her Jane Austen sequels and children’s books, finishes the fragment, introducing a new hero a...

  • The Jewel Seed

    An English orphan unwittingly holds the key to a powerful source of magic The graduation ceremony of the Grand and Ancient College of Siberian Witches takes place in the winter darkness of the Far North. But despite the celebration, the night is full...

  • Fog Hounds and Other Stories

    The Fog Hounds are silent, mysterious and deadly. They roam the land from dusk to dawn. No one who is chased by them ever lives to tell the tale. But Tad is not afraid. Tad wants one for himself, and when he comes face to face with a Fog Hound puppy,...

  • Moon Cake and Other Stories

    Powdered sea-horse, green-glass tree snails, and moonbeams: these are the ingredients for Mrs Lallyday Lee's moon cake. Can Tom resist a taste? This collection of short stories also tells of a dancing palm tree, entrancing music, and hatching dragons...

  • The Youngest Miss Ward

    Harriet Ward, known as Hatty by her sisters Lady Bertram and Mrs. Norris, does not at the age of twelve seem destined for a career of infamy. However, treated with utter contempt by her elder sisters, she is banished by her father to an uncle's estab...

  • Dangerous Games // Limbo Lodge

    Wolves Chronicles - 5

    This eagerly awaited addition to Joan Aiken's award-winning Wolves series takes us on Dido's most imaginative adventure yet! Dido Twite has been sailing the high seas, chasing after Lord Herodsfoot, who is scouring the globe for new and interestin...

  • Lady Catherine's Necklace

    Jane Austen sequels - 5
    Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

    Joan Aiken, one of Jane Austen's most sparkling successors, takes up Austen's pen yet again, this time continuing where Pride and Prejudice left off in Lady Catherine's Necklace.In Austen's classic novel, the arrogant Lady Catherine de Bourgh tried v...

  • In Thunder's Pocket

    When Ned is sent to stay with his aunt and uncle in Thunder's Pocket, he's not very pleased. But from the moment a bird flies into the train carriage on his journey there, Ned realises this isn't going to be an ordinary seaside holiday. H...

  • The Serial Garden

    The complete collection of twenty-four charming and magical Armitage family stories. Includes a prelude by the author and introductions from Garth Nix and Lizza Aiken....

  • Shadows & Moonshine: Stories

    A collection of thirteen tales by Joan Aiken. She can be scary (everyone knows her fascination with wolves and witches) and poetic (as in "Moonshine in the Mustard Pot" or "The Lilac in the Lake"). But whatever she sets her hand to, it is the work...

  • Bone And Dream

    In this third St Boan mystery, Ned is summoned once again by his Aunt Lal to help the famous but cantankerous poet, Sir Thomas Menhenitt. In confronting the poet's problems, Ned rescues Sir Tom's granddaughter, Jonquil from a bizarre and highly dange...

  • The Scream

    When Davey and his sister are orphaned, their grandmother comes from a remote island to look after them -- bringing macabre powers and dark secrets When Davey and his family moved to the city from the island of Muckle Burra off the coast of Scotland,...

  • Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

    Fairytale Retellings: Snow White

    The story of Snow White, her evil stepmother, a talented mirror, a woodsman, a prince, and seven small, hard-working men has never been more exciting or revealing than in this beautiful and feisty retelling by beloved children's book author Joan Aike...

  • Midwinter Nightingale

    Wolves Chronicles - 10

    Dido and Simon are in danger in this new addition to the Wolves Chronicles. Dido, back in England from America, is almost instantly kidnapped and taken to a derelict mansion surrounded by a deadly moat. The evil baron residing there, who is also a we...

  • Snow Horse and Other Stories

    Joan Aiken was famous for her spine-tingling ghost stories, and this collection presents five classic Aiken chillers in a new, accessible edition. Ghosts appear both in the strangest and most familiar places, but their effect is often the same, inspi...

  • The Wooden Dragon

    Joan Aiken tells the story of Window and her sailor brother, Handle, who live in a small house in a wooded hollow. Each autumn, Handle must sweep the huge piles of leaves away. But one day, he breaks the news that he must go away on an extra long t...

  • The Witch of Clatteringshaws

    Wolves Chronicles - 11

    Dido Twite’s sharp wits are put to the test in this new adventure in the Wolves Chronicles. After King Richard dies, Dido’s good pal Simon is put on the English throne, but he hates being cooped up in drafty St. James Palace, and his crusty old a...

  • Night Birds On Nantucket

  • The Monkey's Wedding and Other Stories

    in The Monkey's Wedding and Other Stories

    Praise for Joan Aiken:"Joan Aiken's invention seemed inexhaustible, her high spirits a blessing, her sheer storytelling zest a phenomenon. She was a literary treasure, and her books will continue to delight for many years to come." -- Philip Pullman"...

  • The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories

    Praise for Joan Aiken's stories:"Wildly inventive, darkly lyrical, and always surprising . . . should be cherished." -- Publishers Weekly"Darkly whimsical stories. . . . Aiken writes with surpassing spirit and alertness, her elegant restraint and dry...

  • The Song Of Mat And Ben

  • The Gift Giving: Favourite Stories

    in The Gift Giving: Favourite Stories

    'Joan Aiken's invention seemed inexhaustible, her high spirits a blessing, her sheer storytelling zest a phenomenon. She was a literary treasure, and her books will continue to delight for many years to come' PHILLIP PULLMAN'Favourite stories, like u...

  • Merchants of Menace

    CRIME AND MYSTERY STORIES BY20 VENDORS OF VILLAINYMystery Writers of America is pleased to present this sinister volume of larceny, deception, and murder, brought to you by the very finest purveyors of perfidy.Donald E. Westlake tells a tale of a che...

  • Arabel and Mortimer Stories

    in Arabel and Mortimer Stories

    Arabel and her notorious raven Mortimer make a welcome return to the Puffin nest!When Arabel's father, Ebenezer Jones, drives his taxi home late one night he comes across 'a large black bird, with a hairy fringe around its beak.' He takes it home and...

  • More Arabel and Mortimer

    in More Arabel and Mortimer

    Arabel and her notorious pet raven Mortimer make a welcome return to Penguin Random House Children''s Books
    When Arabel''s father, Ebenezer Jones, drives his taxi home late one night he comes across ''a large black bird, with a hairy fringe around...

  • Stoneywish and other chilling stories

    Book Band: Dark Blue - Ideal for ages 9+

    A brilliant collection of spine-chilling tales by Joan Aiken, author of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.

    From a mysterious traveller who leaves an injured horse with a stranger, to a garde...

Award-Winning Books by Joan Aiken

Night Fall
1972 Edgar Allan Poe Award -- Juvenile


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Joan Aiken has published 124 books.

Joan Aiken does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, Stoneywish and other chilling stories, was published in May 2020.

The first book by Joan Aiken, Is // Is Underground, was published in May 1922.

Yes. Joan Aiken has 5 series.
Pseudonyms / Co-Author
Author Series
Multi-Author Series
Publisher Series
Top Authors in Jane Austen
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