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Charmed Life
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45351

Book 1 of the ‘Chrestomanci’ Series

Charmed Life

CA$100

 46328

 35519

The first volume of the bewitching ‘Chrestomanci’ series by Diana Wynne Jones. Charmed Life arrives in an explosion of magic in this edition illustrated by Alison Bryant and introduced by Katherine Rundell.

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The Magicians of Caprona
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The Lives of Christopher Chant
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The Lives of Christopher Chant
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Witch Week
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Witch Week
CA$100

Charmed Life

CA$100
Book Details
 
Editor's Notes
 
A magical school, parallel universes and nine lives hidden in the most unlikely of places. Welcome to the many worlds of 'Chrestomanci', where nothing is quite as it seems. Charmed Life is an anarchic, hilarious tale of magic and mayhem from the fairy godmother of children’s literature, Diana Wynne Jones. For this special edition of a British fantasy classic, artist Alison Bryant has created six exuberant and witty illustrations that bring the magic of Jones’s most celebrated series to life. Every image is awash with colour and character, from freshly summoned giant frogs to Gwendoline’s delightfully disdainful face – and of course Chrestomanci himself, resplendent in a variety of unlikely dressing gowns. This edition also includes two delightful short stories from the world of ‘Chrestomanci’, ‘Warlock at the Wheel’ and ‘The Sage of Theare’. Katherine Rundell, the award-winning author of the modern children’s adventure classic Rooftoppers, has written a new introduction exclusively for this Folio edition, in which she calls Charmed Life ‘one of the finest children’s books ever written’.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

Alison Bryant

Alison Bryant is a Devon-based illustrator who studied at Harrow Art School before completing a postgraduate course in publishing. After graduating she spent two years in Zambia, teaching drawing at the Africa Literature Centre. She works with a range of media and uses digital techniques to combine her drawings and prints. Her clients include Notion, Hodder Wayland, Macmillan and Barefoot Books. For Folio, Alison has illustrated Diana Wynne Jones’s ‘Chrestomanci’ series: Charmed Life (1977, Folio 2023), The Magicians of Caprona (1980, Folio 2024), Witch Week (1982, Folio 2024) and The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988, Folio 2025).

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ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

Alison Bryant

Alison Bryant is a Devon-based illustrator who studied at Harrow Art School before completing a postgraduate course in publishing. After graduating she spent two years in Zambia, teaching drawing at the Africa Literature Centre. She works with a range of media and uses digital techniques to combine her drawings and prints. Her clients include Notion, Hodder Wayland, Macmillan and Barefoot Books. For Folio, Alison has illustrated Diana Wynne Jones’s ‘Chrestomanci’ series: Charmed Life (1977, Folio 2023), The Magicians of Caprona (1980, Folio 2024), Witch Week (1982, Folio 2024) and The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988, Folio 2025).

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ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

Alison Bryant

Alison Bryant is a Devon-based illustrator who studied at Harrow Art School before completing a postgraduate course in publishing. After graduating she spent two years in Zambia, teaching drawing at the Africa Literature Centre. She works with a range of media and uses digital techniques to combine her drawings and prints. Her clients include Notion, Hodder Wayland, Macmillan and Barefoot Books. For Folio, Alison has illustrated Diana Wynne Jones’s ‘Chrestomanci’ series: Charmed Life (1977, Folio 2023), The Magicians of Caprona (1980, Folio 2024), Witch Week (1982, Folio 2024) and The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988, Folio 2025).

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ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

Alison Bryant

Alison Bryant is a Devon-based illustrator who studied at Harrow Art School before completing a postgraduate course in publishing. After graduating she spent two years in Zambia, teaching drawing at the Africa Literature Centre. She works with a range of media and uses digital techniques to combine her drawings and prints. Her clients include Notion, Hodder Wayland, Macmillan and Barefoot Books. For Folio, Alison has illustrated Diana Wynne Jones’s ‘Chrestomanci’ series: Charmed Life (1977, Folio 2023), The Magicians of Caprona (1980, Folio 2024), Witch Week (1982, Folio 2024) and The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988, Folio 2025).

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ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

Alison Bryant

Alison Bryant is a Devon-based illustrator who studied at Harrow Art School before completing a postgraduate course in publishing. After graduating she spent two years in Zambia, teaching drawing at the Africa Literature Centre. She works with a range of media and uses digital techniques to combine her drawings and prints. Her clients include Notion, Hodder Wayland, Macmillan and Barefoot Books. For Folio, Alison has illustrated Diana Wynne Jones’s ‘Chrestomanci’ series: Charmed Life (1977, Folio 2023), The Magicians of Caprona (1980, Folio 2024), Witch Week (1982, Folio 2024) and The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988, Folio 2025).

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ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

Alison Bryant

Alison Bryant is a Devon-based illustrator who studied at Harrow Art School before completing a postgraduate course in publishing. After graduating she spent two years in Zambia, teaching drawing at the Africa Literature Centre. She works with a range of media and uses digital techniques to combine her drawings and prints. Her clients include Notion, Hodder Wayland, Macmillan and Barefoot Books. For Folio, Alison has illustrated Diana Wynne Jones’s ‘Chrestomanci’ series: Charmed Life (1977, Folio 2023), The Magicians of Caprona (1980, Folio 2024), Witch Week (1982, Folio 2024) and The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988, Folio 2025).

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Author image

Diana Wynne Jones had an unsettled childhood against the background of the Second World War. Her family moved frequently, finally settling in rural Essex. She and her two sisters were deprived of books but, armed with a vivid imagination and an insatiable appetite for stories, Jones wrote them herself to read to her sisters. She never ceased writing, and from 1973 onwards published many titles, which have been released worldwide in 30 languages. Her magical adventures have enthralled children and adults ever since. Among Jones’s best-loved books are the ‘Chrestomanci’ series and Howl’s Moving Castle (1986, Folio 2019) and its two sequels. In 2004 Howl’s Moving Castle was made into an animated film by Hayao Miyazaki for Studio Ghibli, Japan. It broke all box-office records in Japan at the time and was nominated for an Oscar. Jones’s numerous awards include the Guardian Award for Children’s Fiction, two Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards and a Life Achievement Award at the World Fantasy Convention 2007.

Katherine Rundell is a children’s novelist and a Fellow in English literature at All Souls College, Oxford. Her first book, The Girl Savage was published in 2011, and her second novel, Rooftoppers (2014), was nominated for the Carnegie Medal, shortlisted for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, and won the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize. Her recent books include The Good Thieves (2019), and Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne (2022), which won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. Katherine has written the introductions to the Folio editions of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (2015) and Charmed Life (2023).

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