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Author Information

Norman George Denny

 

 

Norman George Denny (1901 - 1982) (Pseudonym: Norman Dale). English writer, translator, and a literary advisory to a prominent English publishing house. Little is known about his life. He was born in Kent, England in 1901, later lived for two years in Mexico City where his father was a mining engineer, and thereafter returned to live in England until his death.

 

A dustjacket for one his juvenile books of the early 1950s carried a statement by Denny that he lived with his wife, 2 sons & a daughter on a farm in Surrey, England. Richard A. Hutchings, however, stated Denny "was married to my aunt, and lived in Devon, England, at least from 1950 until my aunt's death in 1973. He then lived in Hove, Sussex until his own death."

 

The bulk of Denny's literary were some 50 translations. Most were from French, but he also translated several German books.

 

Denny’s own writings were first published in 1936 when Argosy (UK) magazine carried 2 of his short stories, The Lost Garden & The Perfect Conspiracy. The following year, The Storyteller published a third short story called Profit…No Loss. All three were published under his first pseudonym, Bruce Norman.

 

His first novel appeared in 1938 under his own name, but in 1943 he began writing juvenile fiction as Norman Dale, a pseudonym also used by E(dwin) C(harles) Tubb, one of the most popular and prolific British writers of science fiction. Like several other authors of literature for children and juveniles, he too began by writing down the stories he had been telling his eldest son.

 

Denny also compiled a selection of writings and art work from the famous British quarterly "THE YELLOW BOOK" which remained in print for several decades. THE YELLOW BOOK: A SELECTION was first published in 1949 by Bodley Head (London), but also issued by Viking (New York) the following year. Spring Books (London) reissued the title about 1970.

 

Novels written as NORMAN DENNY:

◊The Serpent & the Dove (1938)

◊Sweet Confusion: A Novel (1947)

◊Arrival in Wycherly (1951)

◊Story in Half-Light (1954)

◊The Bayeux Tapestry: The Story of the Norman Conquest (1966) – with Josephine Fillmore Sandy

 

Juvenile Fiction written as NORMAN DALE:

◊Secret Service (1943)

◊Dangerous Treasure (1944)

◊The Best Adventure (1945) as The Exciting Journey (1947)

◊Mystery Christmas (1948)

◊Skeleton Island (1949)

◊The Valley of the Snake (1953)

◊The Secret Motorcar (1954)

◊The Casket and the Sword (1955)

◊The Clock that Struck Fifteen (1956)

◊Johnnie-by-the-River (1957)

◊The Medenham Carnival (1957)

◊The House Where Nobody Lived (1958)

◊All Change for Medenham (1959)

◊The Pied Piper of Medenham 1959)

◊The Game that Really Happened (1959)

◊Look at Farms (1960)

◊The Six Stone Faces (1960)

◊A Medenham Secret (1962)

◊Workbook (1963)

◊The House in Cobble Lane (1964)

 

Content provided by Henry F. Hain III.