British author Diana Wynne Jones has been writing speculative fiction for children for more than thirty years. A clear influence on more recent writers such as J. K. Rowling, her humorous and exciting stories of wizard's academies, dragons, and griffins-many published for children but read by all ages-are also complexly structured and thought provoking critiques of the fantasy tradition. This is the first serious study of Jones's work, written by a renowned science fiction critic and historian. In addition to providing an overview of Jones's work, Farah Mendlesohn also examines Jones's important critiques of the fantastic tradition's ideas about childhood and adolescence. This book will be of interest to Jones's many admirers and to those who study fantasy and children's literature.

Farah Mendlesohn is a noted science fiction critic and historian. She is Editor of the journal Foundation: theInternational Review of Science Fiction and has twice served as a judge for the esteemed Arthur C. Clarke award for best work in sf. She co-edited, with Professor Edward James, The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction.

Series Editor's Foreward Acknowledgments Introduction: The Critical Fictions of Diana Wynne Jones Chapter One. Wilkins' Tooth Chapter Two: Agency and Jones's Understanding of Adolescence Chapter Three: Time Games. Chapter Four: Diana Wynne Jones and the Portal-quest Fantasy Chapter Five: The Immersive Fantasy Chapter Six: Making the Mundane Fantastic: Liminality, Estrangement, Irony and Equipoise Chapter Seven: A Mad Kind of Reasonableness Epilogue Notes Bibliographies