All About: Castles

If I were going to spend a weekend in the magical world of Ingary I’d want to travel in comfort.  It’s quite far from here so I’d have to think carefully of how I’d make my way. I’d definitely travel by CASTLE.  This week we’re going to dip into our Diana Wynne Jones collection and look at that most inventive and smoke-belching mode of transport: a castle, Howl’s Moving Castle, to be specific.  

[Howl’s castle] suddenly appeared on the hills above Market Chipping, blowing clouds of black smoke from its four tall thin turrets…what made it all the scarier was that the castle did not stay in the same place…You could see it moving sometimes, with smoke pouring from its turrets in dirty gray gusts (Extract from Jones' Howl's Moving Castle, p.2, Methuen, 1986).

Inside this Castle that clunks and smokes through the wastes is a rugby-obsessed Welsh wizard called Howl, his fiery fire-spirit Calcifer and the unsuspecting companion in these adventures, the hat-maker’s apprentice, Sophie. 

This is a story about growing up. Sophie is transformed into an old woman by the powerful Witch of the Waste and leaves the hat shop to find work as a cleaner for the notorious wizard Howl.  The castle is where Sophie learns not only about Howl's unwillingness to clean but about her own magical abilities.  It may sound cliché but the Castle opened up a journey of discovery for Sophie.  In her home of Market Chipping she was a cooperative and compliant young girl who later emerges from the castle as a strong, confident old lady (old until the curse is lifted but still confident).  Diana Wynne Jones believed that all children should be encouraged to discover their own individuality, rather than being expected to follow the rules (Seven Stories Moving Stories text panel). Sophie certainly discovers her individuality on the journey and doesn't quite follow the rules. Howl was rumored to be terrifying - probably somebody a young girl should try to avoid and escape not seek employment from.

[Howl] was known to amuse himself by collecting young girls and sucking the souls from them.  Or some people said he ate their hearts.  He was an utterly cold-blooded and heartless wizard and no young girl was safe from him' (Extract from Jones' Howl's Moving Castle, p.3, Methuen, 1986).

Sophie was not exactly a young girl, thanks to the Witch's curse, but her physical transformation from young to old mirrors a transformation of character.  She grows into a person who is no longer resigned to her fate in a hat shop but who controls her own destiny.  

Howl's Moving Castle area of the Moving Stories exhibition which came to a close in 2015. Photography by Damien Wooten © Seven Stories – The National Centre for Children’s Books

It doesn’t exactly seem to be environmentally friendly, but Howl’s Castle allows him to move between worlds. It is his home and his transport. The castle has taken many forms with the Studio Ghibli re-imagining becoming somewhat iconic. Studio Ghibli adapted Howl’s Moving Castle for the screen in 2004. The co-founder of the studio, director Hayao Miyazaki's personal views on environmentalism, pacifism and feminism have a strong influence upon his work. So, a wheezing castle and Sophie's personal journey seem an ideal choice for the Studio however, Miyazaki's adaptation shows significant differences to the book. Prior to the release of the film,  Miyazaki visited Jones at her home to watch the film with her.  About the Japanese director she said "I don't think I've ever met anyone before who thinks like I do. It was wonderful. He saw my books from the inside out."

Diana Wynne Jones is represented in many of our book collections; you can almost always count on finding her name in former public library collections. We have two different versions of Howl's Moving Castle and this cover from the Indonesian edition shows a very different portrayal to the wooden-faced castle of Studio Ghibli. I can understand how a Castle running through the hills like it has spontaneously uprooted and grown legs would have been very frightening to those in the Ingary town of Market Chipping. 

Indonesian edition of Howl's Moving Castle.  Reference: DWJ/06/01/18 © Seven Stories – The National Centre for Children’s Books

The second version features my favourite book cover of all time: it's Howl, with his precious blonde mane and his electric guitar.  For me, this cover embodies some of the humour of Jones’ writing even though Howl isn’t quite as I had imagined and Calcifer is nothing short of terrifying (I have to admit to my fandom of Hayao Miyazaki's much more lovable fire spirit). An online search for Howl's Moving Castle book covers reveals so many different editions each with wonderful artwork - if you own a different copy, I would love to see it!  You can leave a picture in the comment section, or tweet us at @7Stories

Howl's Moving Castle Reference: STSLS/01/451 © Seven Stories – The National Centre for Children’s Books

Jones is widely recognised among scholars, writers and fans of science fiction and fantasy as a truly ground-breaking writer so it's not surprising that her collection is one of our most popular among researchers. In 2014 Seven Stories and Newcastle University hosted a memorial conference for Jones, as a celebration of her work and an evaluation of her contribution to children’s literature, fantasy and science fiction. 

Archival material in our collection includes stories written by Jones as a child; draft material for 49 published works; material relating to numerous unpublished works; correspondence and fan-mail.  

Only a small proportion of material relates to Howl’s Moving Castle with two files containing typescript drafts.  One of which is a setting draft, marked up with typesetting instructions for the printer.  The annotations on this draft mostly refer to formatting amendments for the printers, however some do refer to language use for American editions of the book. 

Setting copy transcript.  Reference: DWJ/02/01/01/02 © Seven Stories – The National Centre for Children’s Books

The  second typescript came to us in a brown envelope with a scrawled label reading  'Howl minus by Miriam'.  This draft is what Howl's Moving Castle could have looked like if Diana's editor Miriam had had her way. The draft was sent to Laura Cecil, Diana’s agent, who gave the following explanation when the collection was donated:

This was a joke version of an edited HOWL sent to Laura Cecil by an exasperated Diana Wynne Jones, showing in a reductio ad absurdum version what would happen if she followed Miriam Hodgson’s editorial comments to the letter.  Neither Miriam nor anyone else at Methuen knew about this version.  It was part of Diana’s way of letting off steam when she was having to fight her corner with publishers.  Later on she and Miriam had a very good relationship, but it took some time for her to understand Diana’s work.

Howl minus by Miriam draft.  Reference: DWJ/02/01/01/01© Seven Stories – The National Centre for Children’s Books

The version is incomplete and the majority of red-ink annotations are suggestions for rephrasing and sentence deletions. As an example here is a change made in chapter thirteen 'In which Sophie blackens Howl's name' 

and another from the end of Chapter 10 'In which Calcifer promises Sophie a hint'

These changes aren't huge or structural, they don't change the story but their frequency would change the flow of the book.  So, this typescript is Jones' reaction to edits that she thought would flatten and oversimplify her language.  Judging from her strong presence in our book collections, numerous translated editions and a Japanese film adaptation, Jones' book has clearly had great success without these particular amendments. 

I may not be able to guarantee that a castle is an efficient mode of transport (with all the billowing smoke and terrified reactions it may not be worth it).  What I can guarantee is that Howl's Moving Castle is an excellent read and our collections shed some light on the stages of its creation, and Diana's popularity as an author.

If you'd like to find out more about the Seven Stories Collection, then 

email: collections@sevenstories.org.uk or phone: 0191 495 2707 or comment on this blog.

Exploring the Diana Wynne Jones archive, by Creative Writing student Becky Orwin

When the opportunity came up through my MA course at Newcastle University to take part in a temporary writing residency at a ‘cultural venue’ in Newcastle or Gateshead, I’m not saying I was holding out for Seven Stories. I’m not saying there was some careful avoidance and glossing-over of emails, I’m just saying that I was thrilled when I heard that Seven Stories were happy to have me hang around for a couple of days. As an aspiring writer for children, the National Centre for Children’s Books is a pretty lovely place to me anyway, but I was particularly excited to be given a private look at some of the archive material.

Some of Diana Wynne Jones's childhood notebooks

I’d seen some of the material before at Seven Stories events, but had generally been too worried about sneezing on something important to spend too long hovering over it. But in November at the Gateshead archive, I got to spend a day flicking through papers at my own leisure. I say ‘papers’ as if that’s all they were, but in actuality I was focusing on the Diana Wynne Jones material. The point of this was originally to focus in on fantasy writing for children, but frankly without some kind of parameters I could have locked myself away in there until next summer.

Part of the Diana Wynne Jones archive at Seven Stories

Even just focusing on the Diana Wynne Jones archive I stayed two hours longer than intended, and still had boxes heartbreakingly unopened when I left. As a writer myself, I can’t describe (ironically) how fascinating it was to look through the manuscripts, drafts and notes of an author as celebrated as Diana Wynne Jones. It’s easy to assume as a young, unpublished, would-be author that nobody but you has problems redrafting, nobody but you throws half-formed ideas away in frustration and nobody but you occasionally produces something so genuinely dire not even your mother can find anything nice to say about it. It’s wonderful to know that Diana Wynne Jones made notes for so many eventually unused ideas, and went through so many enormously changing drafts of a book that eventually shaped millions of childhoods, and wrote as precociously as any fourteen year old convinced of their own cleverness. And not just to know it, but to physically hold evidence that not every word that falls from an eminent author’s pen is perfect the first time round, is pretty thrilling!

Page from manuscript of Charmed Life (Macmillan, 1977)

My favourite piece by far was a very early letter from Diana Wynne Jones’s agent. I think it was dated sometime around 1968, so before Jones had published her first novel and long before she was a legendary name in children’s fiction. Stupidly, I didn’t write the contents of the letter down, but the gist was along the lines of ‘I have unfortunately been unsuccessful in selling your article. Sadly, the nature of these things tends to be that unless you are enormously qualified or have a renowned and illustrious name behind you, publishers aren’t interested.’ That, to an aspiring writer with a collection of rejection letters in the dozens and a name my own teachers struggle to remember, was a hugely satisfying read!

Letter from Diana Wynne Jones's agent, 1968

The whole experience was hugely satisfying, in one way or another. The generosity of Seven Stories in allowing me to wander through the archive material at my own pace, the material itself, and the insight it gave me to the life of a professional writer. In an industry as London-centred as writing and publishing for children, to have resources like Seven Stories and the collection here in the North East is an opportunity that should not be missed; you never know what you might find.

Becky Orwin is an MA Creative Writing student at Newcastle University. Becky visited Seven Stories and the archive as part of the 'Write Around the Toon' project - a student-led project, which places students from Newcastle University’s Creative Writing programme in short residencies with cultural venues across Newcastle-Gateshead  (you can read more about it here: http://watt.nclacommunity.org/content/).

The Diana Wynne Jones collection is available to view by appointment at the Seven Stories Collections Department (you can read more about it here: www.sevenstories.org.uk/collection/collection-highlights/diana-wynne-jones). To find out more about the Seven Stories Collection click here. To make an appointment to visit the Collection or to enquire about other collections that we hold then click here to contact us.

A Fantastic Legacy: Diana Wynne Jones Memorial Conference

We have just had an especially exciting weekend here at Seven Stories, celebrating the work of Diana Wynne Jones at 'A Fantastic Legacy: Diana Wynne Jones Memorial Conference'.

In 2010, Diana Wynne Jones very generously donated her entire archive to Seven Stories. Very sadly, Diana passed away shortly after her donation, in 2011. The idea for a conference in her memory was thought as a fitting way to explore the archive and make it widely available, but also importantly to celebrate Diana's memory.

The archive of material is extensive, ranging over her many published and unpublished works,  and even includes her childhood writing! To find out more, click here for our 'Collection Highlight' page, where you can also see digitised images from the collection.

Day 1 of the conference was held at Seven Stories, mostly in the 'Artist's Attic' on level 7 (where the extended roof pokes out on the image below). There were talks from:

• Laura Cecil, Diana's Literary Agent, to whom we are endebted, as she was mainly responsible for Diana's archive finding it's final home at Seven Stories.
• Nicholas Tucker, children's literature scholar and childhood friend of the Jones' family, who shed fascinating light on parenting practices of Diana's childhood.
• Hannah Izod, archivist at Seven Stories for 7 years, who was responsible for cataloguing the collection.
• Ursula Jones, Diana's sister and now co-author, having recently had the difficult job of finishing Diana's last book 'The Islands of Chaldea'. Ursula described the process of taking up her sister's work beautifully.

Seven Stories, in glorious sunshine on Day 1 of the conference.

Hannah Izod, giving a talk about cataloguing the collection.

We also made sure we had plenty of time to explore the collection, and most conference delegates were very sad to leave at the end of each session. We had many conversations about the archive, and it was wonderful to see people making their own discoveries.

There was also a drinks reception to celebrate the launch of 'Islands of Chaldea', kindly sponsored by Harper Collins, and a meal at the Blackfriars restaurant in central Newcastle.

Day 2 of the conference was hosted by our partners at Newcastle University. In the beautiful Armstrong Building, spread throughout several smaller lecture rooms. 

Newcastle University campus, and the lead up to the Armstrong Building through the Quadrangle.

A suitably mythical looking door led to the conference.

There were 7 panel sessions, and a keynote address by Catherine Butler. The papers given at each session ranged from 'The Colonisation of Fantasyland' by Aishwarya Subramanian to 'Shark-Infest Custard: On chaos as a force for good in the works of Diana Wynne Jones' by Gili Bar-Hillel, with many in between. Details of all the papers can still be found on the conference website here.

These panel sessions explored a huge variety of themes in Jones' books, and it was also interesting to hear from those who had been able to visit the archive before the conference and the discoveries they had made from this. In particular I remember hearing from Gabriela Steinke, who described her experiences opening the papers for the first time from their archival wallets as overwhelming and an "amazing experience". 

Catherina Butler's keynote was very well received, discussing 'Enchanting Places: Readers and Pilgrimage in the Novels of Diana Wynne Jones'. Looking at the sense of place within Jones' novels, Catherine explored the idea of pilgrimage to the various settings, and the level to which these sites have become 'enchanted' through the association. Not only that, but also letting the audience in to discussions she had herself had with Diana about the locations in the novels.


If you want to find out more about this collection, or about any other of our archives then
email: collections@sevenstories.org.uk, phone: 01914952707 or visit: http://www.sevenstories.org.uk/collection.