Eva Ibbotson Biography and latest books by Eva Ibbotson

Eva Ibbotson was born as Maria Charlotte Michelle Wiesner in 1925 in Vienna. Her father, Berthold Wiesner was a physiologist while her mother, Anna Gmeyner was a renowned writer. They were non-practicing Jews. Her parents separated when she was a child and it made her lonely.  The family’s flight from Vienna due to Hitler’s atrocities saddened her. Vienna was constantly in her thoughts and it was reflected in almost all her writings.

Ibbotson studied at Darlington Hall School. She later wrote The Dragonfly Pool with a backdrop of this school and fictitiously named it Delderton Hall. She studied at Bedford College in London and then at Cambridge. She wanted to become a physiologist; however the idea of experimenting on animals repulsed her. She met her future husband, Alan Ibbotson at Cambridge. He was an etymologist.

Ibbotson authored The Secret Countess, A Company of Swans, A Song for Summer, and Magic Flutes for young adults and adults. She wrote The Great Ghost Rescue, Which Witch?, The Worm & the Toffee Nosed Princess, The Haunting of Hiram C. Hopgood, Not Just a Witch, The Secret of Platform 13, Dial-a-Ghost, Monster Mission, Island of the Aunts or Monster Mission, Journey to the River Sea, The Haunting of Granite Falls or The Haunting of Hiram C. Hopgood, The Star of Kazan, The Beasts of Clawstone Castle, The Haunting of Hiram, The Dragonfly Pool, The Ogre of Oglefort, and One Dog and his Boy.