Russell Hoban (1925–2011) was the author of more than seventy books for children and adults. He worked as a commercial artist and advertising copywriter before embarking on a career as a children’s author while in his early thirties. During the 1960s Hoban and his wife, Lillian, worked at a prodigious rate, producing as many as six books in a single year, including The Sorely Trying Day (published by The New York Review Children’s Collection). Among Hoban’s novels for adults are Turtle Diary (published by NYRB Classics), Riddley Walker, The Bat Tattoo, and My Tango with Barbara Strozzi. He lived in London from 1969 until his death.   Quentin Blake is one of the most celebrated children’s book illustrators working today, having illustrated more than three hundred books by such authors as Russell Hoban, Joan Aiken, and Roald Dahl. A prolific writer of books for children himself, Blake was appointed the first Children’s Laureate of England in 1999.