21 Facts About Russell Hoban

Russell Conwell Hoban was an American expatriate writer.

Russell Hoban lived in London from 1969 until his death.

Russell Hoban's father died when Russell was 11, and Russell was thereafter raised by his mother, Jeanette Dimmerman.

Russell Hoban wrote exclusively for children for the next decade, and came to be known best for the series of seven picture books that feature Frances, a temperamental badger girl whose escapades were based partly on the experiences of his four children, Phoebe, Brom, Esme and Julia, and their friends.

Garth Williams depicted Frances as a badger in the first book, Bedtime for Frances, and Lillian Russell Hoban retained that image as the illustrator of five sequels and a poetry collection, published from 1964 to 1972.

The US national library reports holding about three dozen books written by Russell Hoban and published from 1959 to 1972, including about two dozen illustrated by Lillian Russell Hoban.

One was illustrated by their son Brom Russell Hoban: The Sea-thing Child.

The marriage dissolved and, while the rest of the family returned to the United States, Russell Hoban remained in London for the rest of his life.

In 1971, Russell Hoban wrote a book employing concepts borrowed from "The Gift of the Magi", called Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, which further reached fans through a 1977 television special originally created for HBO by the Jim Henson Company.

The book was illustrated by Lillian Russell Hoban, whose drawn renditions of these characters were faithfully replicated by the Muppet creators.

Russell Hoban had four children with his first wife, Lillian Aberman Russell Hoban.

Wieland Russell Hoban set one of his father's texts to music in his piece Night Roads.

The last of Russell Hoban's novels published during his lifetime was Angelica Lost and Found, in which the hippogriff from Girolamo da Carpi's Ruggiero Saving Angelica breaks free from the 16th-century painting to search for Angelica in 21st-century San Francisco.

Two new Russell Hoban books were published posthumously by Walker Books in 2012: Soonchild, illustrated by Alexis Deacon, and Rosie's Magic Horse, illustrated by Quentin Blake.

In 2002 an annual fan activity dubbed the Slickman A4 Quotation Event began, in which Russell Hoban enthusiasts celebrate his birthday by writing down favourite quotes from his books and leaving them in public places.

In 1984, Russell Hoban collaborated with the Impact Theatre Co-operative on a performance entitled The Carrier Frequency.

Russell Hoban supplied the text for the piece, which was staged and performed by Impact.

One performance was seen by Russell Hoban who wrote a critique of the play, written on yellow paper, which is a major theme of the novel.

Russell Hoban is often described as a fantasy writer, and only two of his novels, Turtle Diary and The Bat Tattoo, are entirely devoid of supernatural elements.

For instance, many of Russell Hoban's works refer to lions, Orpheus, Eurydice, Persephone, Vermeer, severed heads, heart disease, flickering, Odilon Redon, and King Kong.

How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen, a picture book written by Russell Hoban, illustrated by Quentin Blake, and published by Jonathan Cape, shared the annual Whitbread Award for Children's Books.