Development
Terry Deary studied at drama college and worked as an actor-teacher at the TIE company in Wales. He then became a theatre director and began to write plays for children. Many of his TIE plays were eventually rewritten and adapted into the Horrible Histories book series.
The fifth book in the series, Blitzed Brits, was published in 1995, by chance coinciding with the 50th anniversary of VE day. The book reached no. 1 on the bestseller list. Deary decided that the book only gave the British viewpoint during World War II. Therefore, Deary wrote Woeful Second World War, focusing on experiences in France, Poland, Germany and Russia during the war. The book was published in September 1999, which coincided with the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II
Deary eventually returned to the stage. Mad Millennium was commissioned by director Phil Clark, who was a fellow TIE participant 25 years before. He suggested turning the books into large-scale theatre productions. Deary was happy to return to writing plays.
In 2007, the original series began to be republished with a new look and new content. The new books had altered information on the back cover, an index and a brighter, redesigned front cover.
Read more about this topic: Horrible Histories
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“The work of adult life is not easy. As in childhood, each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before. With each passage some magic must be given up, some cherished illusion of safety and comfortably familiar sense of self must be cast off, to allow for the greater expansion of our distinctiveness.”
—Gail Sheehy (20th century)
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—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“To be sure, we have inherited abilities, but our development we owe to thousands of influences coming from the world around us from which we appropriate what we can and what is suitable to us.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)