Leon Garfield

Garfield was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1985. On 2 June 1996 he died of cancer at the Whittington Hospital, where he had once worked.

Smith won the 1987 Phoenix Award (from the mythical phoenix, which is reborn from its ashes) from the Children's Literature Association as the best English-language children's book that did not win a major award when originally published.

John Diamond (1980) won the annual Whitbread Literary Award, Children's Novel, a year's best award that considers enjoyable reading for a wide audience, as well as literary merit.

He was a writer, known for Smith (1970), Black Jack (1979) and Jack Holborn (1982). He was married to Vivien Alcock.

Many of Garfield's books have been adapted for film or television: Devil-in-the-Fog was televised in 1968; Smith in 1970; The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris was made into a 6-part BBC serial in 1979; Black Jack was made into a feature film by Ken Loach in the same year; John Diamond was made into a BBC television series in 1981; Jack Holborn was made into the German Christmas mini-series Jack Holborn by ZDF in 1982; The Ghost Downstairs was televised in 1982; "Mr Corbett's Ghost" was made into a television film with Paul Scofield and John Huston in 1987. In addition Garfield himself wrote the script for the 1986 television serial, The December Rose, afterwards adapting it as a novel, and for Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (1992 and 1994), a well regarded Russian animation of Shakespeare, commissioned by the Welsh Channel Four, S4C; for this he was awarded the 1995 Sam Wanamaker Award.

Devil-in-the-Fog (1966) won the inaugural, 1967 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. The newspaper-sponsored Prize is judged by a panel of children's writers and it annually recognises one new British children's novel by an author who has not won it.

In 1964 the Garfields adopted a baby girl whom they called Jane after Jane Austen, a favourite writer of both parents.

After the war Garfield worked as a biochemical laboratory technician at the Whittington Hospital in Islington, writing in his spare time until the 1960s, when he was successful enough to write full-time.

Garfield attended Brighton Grammar School (1932–1938) and went on to study art at Regent Street Polytechnic, but his studies were interrupted first by lack of funds for fees, then by the outbreak of World War II. He married Lena Leah Davies in April, 1941, at Golders Green Synagogue but they separated after only a few months. For his service in the war he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. While posted in Belgium he met Vivien Alcock, then an ambulance driver, who became his second wife (in 1948) and a well-known children's author. She also greatly influenced Garfield's writing, giving him suggestions, including the original idea for Smith.

Leon Garfield was born on July 14, 1921 in Brighton, Sussex, England.