TOWNSEND, John Rowe

(1922-)

   UK writer, principally for older children, beginning with Gumble's Yard (1961; vt Trouble in the Jungle 1969 US), not sf. In Noah's Castle (1975), set in a deeply depressed NEAR FUTURE UK, a family attempts to find enough to eat but the world's decline is too precipitate, and their haven is destroyed. The Xanadu Manuscript (1977; vt The Visitors 1977 US) is a TIME-TRAVEL tale which makes it clear that visitors from thefuture can bring only grief. King Creature, Come (1980; vt The Creatures 1980 US), told from the viewpoint of two young representatives of theALIENS now occupying Earth, carries them into the human Creatures' lives just as a revolt is fomented, which they join. A Foreign Affair (1982) is RURITANIAN, and The Fortunate Isles (1981 US) and The Persuading Stick(1987) are fantasies. A nonfiction study, Written for Children: An Outline of English Children's Literature (1965; rev 1974), is of interest.JRT was not the John Townsend responsible for the interplanetary series for children consisting of The Rocket-Ship Saboteurs (1959) and A Warning to Earth (1960).

   JC