He completed sequels to both debut novels and left Punch to be a full-time author next year. His first two books were published in 1968 and were very well received, one mystery for adults and one science fiction for children. For seventeen years he worked as assistant editor, resident poet and reviewer for Punch magazine. After completing his National Service (1946–48), he studied at King's College, Cambridge, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1951. He entered Eton College in 1941.ĭickinson remained at Eton until 1946. His novel Hindsight is based on the period in Devon after the school was evacuated from Kent during the war. His father died suddenly but Dickinson entered Saint Ronan's prep school in 1936 with support from the family. His parents moved to England so that he and his brothers could attend English schools. As a child he loved stories about knights in armour and explorers, such as Ivanhoe and King Solomon's Mines, and read "anything by Kipling", who influenced his writing greatly.
It’s still a bit scrappy, and parts of it work better than others, but there’s a fair amount there that I’m still pleased with.Dickinson was born in Livingstone, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), the second of the four sons of a man in the colonial service and a farmer's daughter. I threw in Destiny, which is the opposite of chance, to make a more resonant title and magic, because that’s an attempt to defy the randomness of chance and luck and to give the whole thing some kind of structure I threaded a re-telling of the Oedipus legend through it. A sort of scrap-book was an obvious solution, and since I’m also hopeless at research it was much easier for me to use fiction and verse to illustrate some of the points. I’m very interested in the subject, but not enough of a coherent thinker to do a straight treatise. My UK editor, Joanna Goldsworthy, asked if I’d like to do a short non-fiction book about chance and luck. Chance, Luck and Destiny Boston Globe-Hornbook Prize for Non-fiction: Winner About the BookĬollection of original material, prose and verse, fact and fiction, on the themes of the title.
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