Jeff Dickson: Cowhand

by David Severn

112 pages, Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 1963

About the author

David Severn was a pseudonym for David Storr Unwin, a British writer. He was the son of publisher Sir Stanley Unwin, of whom Severn wrote a biography in 1982, Fifty Years with Father.

Severn attended Abbotsholme School, Derbyshire from 1933–36, and worked for the League of Nations Secretariat, Geneva (1938), Unwin Brothers (printers), 1939, Blackwells (1940) and George Allen & Unwin (1941-43), having been declared medically unfit for the armed services.

His first series for children (1942-46) featured "Crusoe" Robinson, who was befriended by youngsters in holiday adventures, many featuring a Romany group. The Warner family series followed (1947–52), featuring pheasants, ponies and country life. The scraperboard illustrations of Joan Kiddell-Monroe greatly enhance these two series.

A number of books experimented with the paranormal and time-slip, and can be compared with many modern books revisiting supernatural themes. Drumbeats! has a musical youngster beating a native drum which transports children to a lost expedition to Africa twenty years earlier. Dream Gold shows the hypnotic power of one boy over another, with dreams reliving the conflicts of their ancestors. The Future Took Us is a time-slip. The Girl in the Grove, his longest book, is a psychological ghost story. He also produced illustrated books for younger children.