Nicholas Stuart Gray

Nicholas Stuart Gray (23 October 1922, Scotland – 17 March 1981) was a British actor and playwright, perhaps best known for his work in children's theatre in England. He was also an author of children's fantasy; he wrote a number of novels, a dozen plays, and many short stories. Neil Gaiman has written that Gray "is one of those authors I loved as a boy who holds up even better on rereading as an adult".[1] Many other modern fantasy authors, such as Hilari Bell,[2] Cecilia Dart-Thornton,[3] Kate Forsyth,[4] Cassandra Golds,[5] Katherine Langrish,[6] Sophie Masson,[7] and Garth Nix,[8] cite Gray's work as something they enjoyed as children.

Perhaps his best-known books are The Seventh Swan and Grimbold's Other World. Gray often produced adaptations or continuations of traditional fairy tales and fantasy works, as in his Further Adventures of Puss in Boots. His The Stone Cage is a re-telling of Rapunzel from a cat's point of view. Over the Hills to Fabylon is about a city whose king has the ability to make it fly off across the mountains if he feels it is in danger.

Gray maintained a long-term collaborative relationship with set designer and illustrator Joan Jefferson Farjeon (niece [9] of Eleanor Farjeon and Harry Farjeon); she supplied the costume and scenic designs for many of the theatrical productions of his plays, as well as the illustrations for most of his printed plays and for the novel version of The Seventh Swan.