Anthony Horowitz
Author of Stormbreaker
About the Author
Author and television scriptwriter Anthony Horowitz was born in Stanmore, England on April 5, 1956. At the age of eight, he was sent to a boarding school in London. He graduated from the University of York and published his first book, Enter Frederick K. Bower (1979), when he was 23. He writes show more mostly children's books, including the Alex Rider series, The Power of Five series, and the Diamond Brothers series. The Alex Rider series is about a 14-year-old boy becoming a spy and was made into a movie entitled Stormbreaker. He has won numerous awards including the 1989 Lancashire Children's Book of the Year Award for Groosham Grange and the 2003 Red House Children's Book Award for Skeleton Key. He also writes novels for adults including The Killing Joke and The Magpie Murders. He has created Foyle's War and Midsomer Murders for television as well as written episodes for Poirot and Murder Most Horrid. He made The New York Times Best Seller list with his titles The House of Silk Russian Roulette: The Story of an Assassin and Moriarity.Most recently he was commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate to write the James Bond novel Trigger Mortis. Anthony was awarded an OBE for his services to literature in January 2014. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Anthony Horowitz
Power of Five Books Collection 5 Books Set by Anthony Horowitz (Raven's Gate, Evil Star, Night Rise, Necropolis,… (2013) 15 copies
Midsomer Murders: The Killings at Badger's Drift [1997 TV Series Episode] (1997) — Screenplay — 14 copies
Foyle's War: Sets 1-5 - From Dunkirk to VE-Day — Creator — 11 copies
Je sais tout sur le monde et la nature (Les Dicos de dis pourquoi?) (French Edition) (1977) 5 copies
Crime Traveller 5 copies
Crime Traveller: Complete Series — Creator — 4 copies
Foyle's War: Sets 1-2 — Creator — 3 copies
THE MISSION FILES.[CONFIDENTIAL] 3 copies
Anthony Horowitz Wickedly Funny 10 Children Books Collection Set (The Switch, Return to Groosham Grange, Granny, The… (2015) 2 copies
The Switch {video} — Author — 2 copies
The Gatekeepers Set 2 copies
Alex Underground 2 copies
Foyle's War: Sets 3-4 — Creator — 2 copies
Foyle's War: Sets 5-6 — Creator — 2 copies
The Alex Rider Collection Books 2-7 2 copies
Foyle's War: Sets 1-7 — Creator — 2 copies
Foyle's War: Sets 7-8 1 copy
Alex Rider Adventure 9-12 1 copy
Foyle's War (Series 1, Episodes 01-04 / Series 2, Episodes 01-02) — Creator — 1 copy
Foyle's War: Set 3-4 1 copy
Foyle's War (Series 4, Episodes 01-02 / Series 5, Episodes 01-02 / Series 6, Episodes 01-02) — Creator — 1 copy
Coda (Alex Rider, #7.5) 1 copy
The Diamond Brothers Detective Agency Collection Anthony Horowitz 7 Titles in 5 Books Set (2017) 1 copy
Essential Alex Rider 1 copy
Foyle's War: Set 5-6 1 copy
Foyle's War: Set 8, Episode 2: Trespass — Creator — 1 copy
Foyle's War: Set 8, Episode 1: High Castle — Creator — 1 copy
Poisoned pen 1 copy
Gemini-Project 1 copy
Foyle's War (Series 2, Episodes 03-04 / Series 3, Episodes 01-04) — Creator — 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1955-04-05
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Stanmore, Middlesex, England, UK
- Places of residence
- North London, England, UK
Orford, Suffolk, England, UK - Education
- University of York
Orley Farm, Harrow, Middlesex, England, UK - Occupations
- screenwriter
novelist
creator of television series - Awards and honors
- Order of the British Empire (Officer, 2014)
- Agent
- Jonathan Lloyd
- Short biography
- Anthony Horowitz's life might have been copied from the pages of Charles Dickens or the Brothers Grimm. Born in 1956 in Stanmore, Middlesex, to a family of wealth and status, Anthony was raised by nannies, surrounded by servants and chauffeurs. His father, a wealthy businessman, was, says Mr. Horowitz, "a fixer for Harold Wilson." What that means exactly is unclear -- "My father was a very secretive man," he says-- so an aura of suspicion and mystery surrounds both the word and the man. As unlikely as it might seem, Anthony's father, threatened with bankruptcy, withdrew all of his money from Swiss bank accounts in Zurich and deposited it in another account under a false name and then promptly died. His mother searched unsuccessfully for years in attempt to find the money, but it was never found. That too shaped Anthony's view of things. Today he says, "I think the only thing to do with money is spend it." His mother, whom he adored, eccentrically gave him a human skull for his 13th birthday. His grandmother, another Dickensian character, was mean-spirited and malevolent, a destructive force in his life. She was, he says, "a truly evil person", his first and worst arch villain. "My sister and I danced on her grave when she died," he now recalls.
A miserably unhappy and overweight child, Anthony had nowhere to turn for solace. "Family meals," he recalls, "had calories running into the thousands&. I was an astoundingly large, round child&." At the age of eight he was sent off to boarding school, a standard practice of the times and class in which he was raised. While being away from home came as an enormous relief, the school itself, Orley Farm, was a grand guignol horror with a headmaster who flogged the boys till they bled. "Once the headmaster told me to stand up in assembly and in front of the whole school said, 'This boy is so stupid he will not be coming to Christmas games tomorrow.' I have never totally recovered." To relieve his misery and that of the other boys, he not unsurprisingly made up tales of astounding revenge and retribution.
Anthony Horowitz is perhaps the busiest writer in England. He has been writing since the age of eight, and professionally since the age of twenty. He writes in a comfortable shed in his garden for up to ten hours per day. In addition to the highly successful Alex Rider books, he has also written episodes of several popular TV crime series, including Poirot, Murder in Mind, Midsomer Murders and Murder Most Horrid. He has written a television series Foyle's War, which recently aired in the United States, and he has written the libretto of a Broadway musical adapted from Dr. Seuss's book, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. His film script The Gathering has just finished production. And&oh yes&there are more Alex Rider novels in the works. Anthony has also written the Diamond Brothers series.
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Statistics
- Works
- 225
- Also by
- 15
- Members
- 66,868
- Popularity
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- Rating
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