Shirley Hughes

Winifred Shirley Hughes (16 July 1927 – 25 February 2022) was an English author and illustrator. She wrote more than fifty books, which have sold more than 11.5 million copies, and illustrated more than two hundred. She was a recipient of the Eleanor Farjeon Award. She was a patron of the Association of Illustrators.

Early life Hughes was born in West Kirby, then in the county of Cheshire (now in Merseyside), on 16 July 1927. The daughter of Thomas James Hughes, owner of the Liverpool-based store chain T. J. Hughes and his wife Kathleen (née Dowling), she grew up in West Kirby on the Wirral. She recalled being inspired from childhood by artists like Arthur Rackham and W. Heath Robinson, and later by the cinema and the Walker Art Gallery. Particular favourites of hers were Edward Ardizzone, and EH Shepard who illustrated Wind in the Willows and Winnie-the-Pooh.

She enjoyed frequent visits to the theatre with her mother, which gave her a love for observing people and a desire to create. In 1952, she married John Sebastian Papendiek Vulliamy, an architect and etcher, of the Vulliamy family. They had three children together: the journalist Ed Vulliamy, the geneticist Tom Vulliamy, and Clara Vulliamy, who is also a children's book illustrator.

Career

In Oxford, Hughes was encouraged to work in the picture book format and make lithographic illustrations.

Her most famous book, Dogger, is about a toy dog who is lost by a small boy, but is then reunited with his owner after being found in a jumble sale. This book was inspired by her son, Ed, who lost his favourite teddy in Holland Park. A real Dogger also existed, and was on display along with the rest of her work at her exhibition in London and Oxford. Hughes wrote her first novel in 2015, a young-adult book titled Hero on a Bicycle. Michael Morpurgo, author of War Horse, praised her, noting that she "began the reading lives of so many millions." and the University of Chester in 2012.

Booktrust, the UK's largest reading charity, awarded Hughes their first lifetime achievement award in 2015.

Works Moving Molly Bathwater's Hot Noisy When We Went to the Park All Shapes and Sizes Colours Two Shoes, New Shoes The Snow Lady. Out and About Dogger Lucy and Tom's Christmas Lucy and Tom at the Seaside Tales of Trotter Street Hero on a Bicycle The Christmas Eve Ghost The Lion and the Unicorn Helpers Angel Mae Dogger's Christmas Jonadab and Rita

Alfie stories Alfie Gets in First Alfie Gives a Hand Alfie Wins a Prize Alfie's Feet Alfie's Weather An Evening at Alfie's The Big Alfie and Annie Rose Story Book Rhymes for Annie Rose

Works by other authors, illustrated by Hughes Rust, Doris, All Sorts of Days: Six Stories for the Very Young (Faber and Faber, 1955) Corrin, Sara and Stephen, Stories for Eight-Year-Olds (Faber and Faber, 1974)