Howl’s Moving Castle

Diana Wynne Jones, best known for her children’s and young adult fantasy literature, was born in August 1934 in London, England. She is credited as an inspiration for other fantasy writers, such as Terry Pratchett and J.K. Rowling. During her career, Jones was twice a finalist for the Hugo Award, won the British Fantasy Award in 1999, and the World Fantasy Award in 2007.

Jones and her two sisters, Isobel and Ursula, spent a good portion of their childhood moving between Wales and the Lake District in England during the world wars. Jones studied English at St. Anne’s College in Oxford and attended lectures given by C.S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, which introduced her to fantasy as a literary form. She married a scholar of medieval literature, John Burrow, in 1956 and had three sons, Richard, Michael, and Colin.

Jones began writing in the mid-1960s to escape an overwhelming household of three young children and an ill husband. Her first novel, Changeover, was written for adults and explores the emotional and political impacts of decolonization then happening in the British Empire and was published by Macmillan in 1970. Jones continued writing in a variety of literary forms and genres. While visiting a school, Jones was approached by a young boy who requested she write a fantasy novel about a moving castle, so Jones wrote Howl’s Moving Castle in response to the boy’s wish and published this novel in 1986.