In the land of Ingary where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of the three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes.

For Charmed Life the first Chrestomanci novel Jones won the 1978 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize a once-in-a-lifetime award by The Guardian newspaper that is judged by a panel of children's writers. There Jones and her two younger sisters Isobel (later Professor Isobel Armstrong the literary critic) and Ursula spent a childhood left chiefly to their own devices. Works


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Notes.

Diana Wynne Jones (16 August 1934 – 26 March 2011) was an English writer principally of fantasy novels for children and adults as well as a small amount of non-fiction.