Biography
Clive King was born on 16 April 1924 in Richmond, Surrey. He was educated at King's School, Rochester, and Downing College, Cambridge, where he read modern languages. He served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War.
After the war King worked for the British Council in various countries, including Iraq, Lebanon and India, as well as teaching in Britain. His experiences living in different cultures and landscapes clearly fed his imaginative sympathy for outsiders and his interest in the ancient past beneath the modern world.
Stig of the Dump was published in 1963 and became an immediate classic. The novel drew on King's knowledge of Kent — particularly the chalk pits of the North Downs — and on his interest in prehistoric Britain. The chalk-pit setting is based on real geography near his home.
King wrote several other children's books, including The Twenty-Two Letters (1966) and The Night the Water Came (1973), but none achieved the lasting reputation of Stig of the Dump. He died on 6 March 2018 at the age of 93.