ALAN GARNER was born in Congleton, Cheshire in 1934, and grew up in Alderley Edge, where his father’s family had lived for more than three hundred years. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and at Magdalen College, Oxford, after which he began writing his first novel, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, at the age of twenty-two. His books include Elidor, The Owl Service (which won the Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal), Red Shift and The Stone Book Quartet, recognised by the Phoenix Award of America for 1996.