Edward Blishen

Edward Blishen (29 April 1920 – 13 December 1996) was an English author and broadcaster. He may be known best for the first of two children's novels based on Greek mythology, written with Leon Garfield, illustrated by Charles Keeping, and published by Longman in 1970. For The God Beneath the Sea, Blishen and Garfield won the 1970 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject.

When the Second World War was declared, he became a conscientious objector.

Later, he taught for three years teaching in a Hampstead prep school, before going on to a secondary modern school in Holloway Road, north London, where he wrote his best-selling first book, Roaring Boys, in 1955. Following its success, he gave up teaching in 1959 – although he did some part-time teaching at York University between 1963 and 1965 – in order to devote more time to writing and then to developing a career in broadcasting. Fans of Roaring Boys and its sequel, This Right Soft Lot, ranged from the novelist Kingsley Amis to former Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock.

For more than 33 years, from its inception in 1961 until, at least, 1994, Blishen was the editor of the Junior Pears Encyclopaedia, published by Pelham Books.

Blishen had a regular column in The Young Elizabethan.

As a broadcaster, Blishen did some notable work with the BBC's African Service and later was a presenter of the BBC Radio 4 programme A Good Read and a regular contributor to Stop the Week.

He also compiled a number of collections in the Kingfisher Treasury of Stories series and Children's Classics to Read Aloud.

In June 1995, Blishen was awarded an honorary degree from the Open University as Doctor of the University.

He died in Hadley Wood, Hertfordshire, in 1996, at the age of 76. He had two sons and was married to Nancy Smith.