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David Severn (3 December 1918 — 11 February 2010) was a pseudonym for David Storr Unwin, British, son of Sir Stanley Unwin the publisher. His biography in 1982 was Fifty Years with Father, and he had Who's Who entries throughout his writing career. He attended Abbotsholme School, Derbyshire, 1933—36 and worked for the League of Nations Secretariat, Geneva (1938), Unwin Brothers (printers), 1939, Blackwells (1940) and George Allen & Unwin (1941-3)having been declared medically unfit for the armed services. Only his last three books were published by Allen and Unwin. His first series for children (1942-6) featured ‘Crusoe’ Robinson who was befriended by youngsters in holiday adventures, many featuring a Romany group. The Warner family series followed (1947—52) featuring pheasants, ponies and country life. The scraperboard illustrations of Joan Kiddell-Monroe greatly enhance these two series. A number of books experimented with the paranormal and time-slip, and can be compared with many modern books revisiting supernatural themes. Drumbeats! has a musical youngster beating a native drum which transports children to a lost expedition to Africa twenty years earlier. Dream Gold shows the hypnotic power of one boy over another, with dreams reliving the conflicts of their ancestors. These are his most interesting books, and the ones he wished to be remembered by (Doyle, 1978: 1114). The Future Took Us is a time-slip into 3000AD. The Girl in the Grove , his longest book, is a psychological ghost story. He also produced illustrated books for younger children.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "David Severn", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0