Lloyd Alexander

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Image:The High King.jpg Lloyd Chudley Alexander (born January 30, 1924 in Philadelphia) is the author of more than forty books, most being fantasy books for children and adolescents, as well as several adult novels. Probably his most famous contribution to the field of children's fantasy is The Chronicles of Prydain, inspired by Welsh mythology and the Mabinogion. The first two books in this series formed the basis of the Disney animated film The Black Cauldron.

[edit] Personal Life

Lloyd was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1940, being inducted into the school's Wall of Fame in 1995. He decided he wanted to be a writer at age 15, but his parents were horrifed, so they then put him in a local college. Looking for adventure, he served in the US Army in World War II where he rose to be a staff sergeant in intelligence and counterintelligence after he trained in Wales, the setting of many of his books. Alexander then attended the University of Paris, where he met Janine Denni. They were married in 1946. They now reside in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania.

[edit] Bibliography

The Chronicles of Prydain
- The Book of Three (1964)
- The Black Cauldron (1965) - Winner of the 1966 Newbery Honor
- The Castle of Llyr (1966)
- Taran Wanderer (1967)
- The High King (1968) - Winner of the 1969 Newbery Medal
- The Foundling and Other Tales from Prydain (1970)
The Westmark Trilogy
- Westmark (novel)
- The Kestrel
- The Beggar Queen
The Vesper Holly series
- The Illyrian Adventure
- The El Dorado Adventure
- The Drackenberg Adventure (1988)
- The Jedera Adventure
- The Philadelphia Adventure
- The Xanadu Adventure (2005)
Other
- And Let the Credit Go (1955) (first published book)
- My Five Tigers (1956)
- August Bondi: Border Hawk (1958)
- Aaron Lopez: The Flagship Hope (1960)
- Fifty Years in the Doghouse (1963)
- Time Cat: The Remarkable Journeys of Jason And Gareth (1963)
- The Truthful Harp (1967)
- The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian (1970)
- The King's Fountain (1971)
- The Four Donkeys (1972)
- The Cat Who Wished to Be a Man (1973)
- The Wizard in the Tree (1974)
- The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha (1978)
- The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen (1991)
- The Fortune-Tellers (1992)
- The Arkadians (1995)
- The House Gobbaleen (1995)
- The Iron Ring (1997)
- Gypsy Rizka (1999)
- How the Cat Swallowed Thunder (2000)
- The Gawgon and the Boy (2001) [released in the UK as "The Fantastical Adventures of the Invisible Boy"]
- The Rope Trick (2002)
- Dream-of-Jade: The Emperor's Cat (2005)
Translations
- Nausea: The Wall and Other Stories, Jean-Paul Sartre (1999)