In the last days of Elizabeth I's reign the Marsden family are living in the North of England. While the country waits and wonders who will take the throne the north is worried the Scottish King James will be the next king. There is a long history of hatred between the Scots and the fear is they will sweep south and exact revenge ... with the monarch's blessing. The Marsden family have a tradition of telling stories and those stories shed light on their present problems. In "The Prince of Rags and Patches" they find themselves entangled in a murder mystery and Great Uncle George's launches into the story of Richard III and the princes in the Tower.
A former actor, theatre-director and drama teacher, Deary says he began writing when he was 29. Most famously, he is one of the authors of the Horrible Histories series of books popular among children for their disgusting details, gory information and humorous pictures and among adults for getting children interested in history. Books in the series have been widely translated into other languages and imitated.
A cartoon series has been made of the series of books and was shown on CiTV for a period in 2002.
The first series of a live-action comedy sketch show of the same name was shown on CBBC in 2009 and a second series is due.
Terry is also known widely throughout children and adult reading groups alike for his True Stories series (see below for series list).
He received an Honorary Doctorate of Education from the University of Sunderland in 2000. His numerous accolades also include the Blue Peter "Best Nonfiction Author of the Century" Award in the U.K.
I read these books when I very young but I remember enjoying them immensely. As an adult I love historical fiction still and put it down to this series of books. The family characters are simply written but you get a sense of them very quickly and the dialogue between them is engaging. I loved that there was a breakdown of who the main characters were and where they sit in the tudor time line and at the end of the book there is a time line of the story told by Uncle George about their great grandfather and his time with Richard 3rd. I shall carry on dipping I to do a re read of the rest of the series.