Leon Garfield was born on July 14, 1921, in Brighton, England. After
attending grammar school in Brighton, he briefly studied art and then served
for five years in the Army Medical Corps. He worked for twenty years in a
London hospital as a biochemical technician while establishing himself as a
writer. He lives in London.
Garfield taught himself to write fiction by imitating authors such as Lewis
Carroll, Hans Christian Andersen, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, and Robert
Louis Stevenson. Although usually categorized as a writer for juveniles, he
prefers to call his books "family novels," accessible to the intelligent
twelve-yearold and still enjoyable for the adult.
After writing various stories aimed at the adult reader, Garfield achieved
his first real success with Jack Holborn, originally submitted as an
adult novel but published in shortened form as a juvenile book. Inspired by
Robert Louis Stevenson's Master of Ballantrae, Garfield's novel is
likewise set in the eighteenth century. Garfield found he had an affinity for
this historical period. He has subsequently published dozens of novels, mostly
adventure tales for young adults and usually set in London or southern England
during the eighteenth century. He has also published short stories, a play, a
nonfiction book about eighteenth-century England, and several retellings of
classic tales and myths. Garfield also completed The Mystery of Edwin
Drood, Charles Dickens's unfinished novel, successfully matching the
Victorian writer's style and spirit.
Garfield's books have received several awards, including the prestigious
Carnegie Medal of the British Library Association for The God Beneath the
Sea, a retelling of Greek myths on which he collaborated with Edward
Blishen. Three of his books have been runnersup for the Carnegie Medal:
Smith, Black Jack, and The Drummer Boy.