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Sticky: Introduction & rules

Imported from LJ 01/06/2017 - so everything at the moment is very out of date, but perhaps over here it can finally see some life as a comm? Who knows?

This is an LJ community dedicated to the writer Joan Aiken, most famous for her sequence of children's novels, The Wolves Chronicles, starting with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. I was looking for somewhere to post some Midnight is a Place-related goodies I had, and found nowhere. That seemed very wrong, so a comm was born.

Anything connected to the author, her works, her illustrators, TV/Film adaptations of her books etc. is welcome on the comm, as are icons, fanfic, reviews, discussion and so on. She was also the daughter of the US poet Conrad Aiken, while her sister is the novelist Jane Aiken Hodge.

If in doubt, generally, a tangential post is better than no post, but you can also contact the mods, or drop a comment to this post if you have a question or suggestion.

Rules: mainly, be nice. No spamming, no trolling, no flaming etc. No plotting to heartlessly throw orphans out into the snow.

There's also a Resources Post here.

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Sticky: Resources Post

Useful Joan Aiken related links - if you have any others, please add in the comments & the links will be added when the post is updated.

General
The Wonderful World of Joan Aiken
The official website, with lots of info etc. (Includes a useful bibliography that can be sorted in different ways, including chronological and by series/age ranges

Joan Aiken entry on Wikipedia
Joan Aiken obituary from The Guardian (Jan 2004)
Joan Aiken obituary from The Independent (Jan 2004)
Joan Aiken obituary from The Telegraph (Jan 2004)

Amazon has a Joan Aiken page.

Illustrators
Sadly, I can't find very much for the late Pat Marriott, other than Joan's own tribute (on the official website): "She has an absolutely magical gift for presenting landscapes and characters just as they were in my mind. She can get wonderful sympathy and terrific action and pace into her drawings of people; with some of my characters now, such as Dido and Miss Slighcarp, I can hardly envisage them other than as Pat draws them."
Jan Pienkowski
Quentin Blake

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase Sequence / Wolves Chronicles
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase on Wikipedia
Black Hearts in Battersea on Wikipedia (includes info on the 1995 TV adaptation)

Arabel & Mortimer
Arabel's Raven Fan website.

TV/Film Adaptations
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase on Wikipedia and on IMDB (1989 Suart Orme film adaptation starring Stephanie Beacham, Mel Smith, Emily Hudson and Aleks Darowska).
Black Hearts in Battersea (1995 BBC TV production by James Andrew Hall, starring William Mannering and Jade Williams as Simon and Dido). (Some info on the book entry, above.)
Midnight is a Place on IMDB (1978 ITV production by Chris McMaster starring Simon Gipps-Kent, Maxine Gordan, David Collings, William Squire, Lally Bowers and Ron Moody.)
Arabel's Raven (Jackanory, 1971; read by Roy Kinnear)
Arabel and Mortimer Wikipedia entry (1993-1994 CBBC puppet series)

Fanfic
Joan Aiken Wolves fanfic on AO3 (A very rare fandom, but there are currently 3 stories, mostly via

yuletide).

Icons, graphics & fanart
(No links as yet.)

Obscure & British Commentfest 2015

A multifandom commentfest for medium-tiny British fandoms of all kinds. All fanworks welcome. (Click on the banner for the link.)

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Wolves of Willoughby Chase (1989)

Of course, I didn't really say this, or post this here (obviously), but...

The 1989 film seems to be complete here on YouTube. For the moment, at least.

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Rec: now, in the meanwhile, with hearts raised on high

This has to be one of the best fanfics I've seen in any fandom, full stop. I wasn't sure it would be possible for someone to really get away with writing for the Wolves sequence, let alone tie up the loose ends so beautifully and satisfactorily:

Now, in the meanwhile, with hearts raised on high (12818 words) by

lionpyh
Fandom: Wolves Chronicles - Joan Aiken
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Dido Twite, Is Twite, Arun Twite, Bonnie Green, Sylvia Green, Piers Ivanhoe le Guichet Crackenthorpe, Simon Battersea
Summary:

Crown to the valiant, to weary ones rest. Picks up where Witch of Clatteringshaws leaves off.

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Midnight Is A Place - Denzil's Song

The end credits for ITV's 1978 Midnight Is A Place, which is Denzil's song from the book put to music - with an extra verse:

(I'm intrigued as to where the extra lyrics came from, and why, as they haven't used one of the verses from the book. Hmm.)

Set to music by Pat Phelan (and it sounds very much as though it's sung by David Collings, who plays Julian Oakapple in the adaptation.)

ETA: An answer! The extra verse came from Joan Aiken herself; the music was written by John Sebastian Brown (and adapted by Southern for the serial). Many thanks to

lizzaaiken, Joan's daughter, for this information. (You can see the full answer, and the lyrics, below in the comments.)

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Midnight Is A Place Icons (Text & ITV serial)

Two sets of Midnight Is A Place icons I made on (finally) re-reading the book again during my watch of the DVD of the TV version. And I have to say (not anything to do with icons) but only Joan Aiken can pull off a genuinely sad backstory that also involves a wild wager, a chorus of ghosts and a giant ginger pie.

So... here is a set of icons from the ITV Southern 1977/78 serialisation of Joan Aiken's Midnight Is A Place. Featuring Simon Gipps-Kent (Lucas), Maxine Gordan (Anne Marie*), David Collings (Julian Oakapple), Lally Bowers (Lady Murgatroyd), Ron Moody (Gudgeon), Jenny Tomasin (Rose Scroggs), James Cosmo (Davey Scatcherd) and Milton Johns (Bob Bludward).

*Not an error; she is older and has become Anne Marie rather than Anna Marie in the TV version.

Teaser:

Total Icon Count: 67

( I didn't much care for his slice of Clutterby Pie )

Plus a set of text icons from the book itself:

Total Icon Count: 27

( A tool can give one person too much power over another )

The usual: want, take, have, credit. Comments are ♥ and mind the wild hogs in the sewers.
Credits: Textures by

how_we_fade @

fade_art and

twinstrike @

twinstrikeish (used for the text icons); both via

100x100textures. Screen caps my own.