Chiswick’s writers have created some of Britain’s greatest works, from Vanity Fair to Look Back in Anger and The Caretaker. Our Writers Trail features 36 acclaimed novelists, poets and dramatists. The Observer wrote: Chiswick may be Britain’s most literary location.
Chiswick also has a fine record in creating, publishing and promoting books for children – but this is a story untold till now! We are telling it here for the first time, and in an Exhibition – The Untold Story of Chiswick’s Books for Children – which is open in St Michael & All Angels Church from Sunday March 1st to Sunday March 15th 2026.
1. Puffin to Peter Rabbit & Harry Potter: Chiswick’s children’s book publishers
Chiswick has been home to many influential publishers of children’s books, including Kaye Webb, Jane Nissen and Sally Floyer.
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- The 1960s were a golden age for children’s books, not least thanks to Kaye Webb, Editor of Puffin Books (above) who was born in Chiswick and lived by the river in Montrose Villas, Hammersmith Terrace. “Kaye Webb burst on to the children’s publishing scene in 1961 and changed the industry forever. With no publishing experience whatsoever, Kaye persuaded renowned authors like Roald Dahl and Nina Bawden to publish their hardback bestsellers as pocket-sized paperbacks that children could buy themselves. ” – BBC Radio 4 Great Lives.
- Kaye worked for many years at Puffin with her neighbour Jane Nissen of Chiswick Mall. “The doorbell rang and it was Kaye Webb who’d moved just down the road” Jane said. She joined Puffin and stayed until 1979, when Kaye Webb retired. From 1980-86 she worked at Methuen Children’s Books, where she bought Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse and made it a best-seller. She returned to Penguin as editorial director of Hamish Hamilton’s children’s list. In 1998, made to retire from Penguin, she set up Jane Nissen Books to republish out-of-print children’s classics, including several ofl Noel Streatfeild’s ‘shoes’ series. She won the Eleanor Farjeon Award, as had Kaye Webb.
- Jane worked closely at Penguin with Sally Floyer, who also lives in Chiswick. Sally became managing director of Frederick Warne, the company that first published the works of Beatrix Potter, which became a division of Penguin in 1983. She was also managing director of the Ladybird books series. For 20 years she managed some of the world’s most enduring children’s properties, including Peter Rabbit, licensing them for the screen as well as publishing. “With some trepidation Sally invited the Beatrix Potter Society members to an early screening and was very relieved that they liked it very much” – License Global Magazine
- Other influential publishing figures who have lived in Chiswick include Dotti Irving, whose first job was working at Puffin with Kaye Webb (and wearing the Puffin costume at the Puffin Exhibition!). Dotti was head of communications for Penguin before setting up the PR company Colman Getty, where she was closely involved with the Booker Prize and Samuel Johnson Prize and worked with JK Rowling, William Boyd and many others. She is now an agent.
- Dotti brought Barry Cunningham into Penguin and Puffin in 1977, after he had been working in the bookshop Turn’em Pages in Turnham Green Terrace, Chiswick W4. As marketing director for Puffin, he travelled around the world with Roald Dahl. He later joined Bloomsbury and is best known for signing JK Rowling and publishing Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in 1997.
The Chiswick Book Festival celebrated their inspiring work at a special Children’s Books Day on Saturday March 7th 2026 in St Michael & All Angels Church W4, marking both World Book Day and International Women’s Day, as part of the National Year of Reading.
2. Play School to Polka: Chiswick’s performers on screen and stage
Chiswick has been home to children’s TV presenters, producers, actors and musicians who performed and promoted children’s books, as well as adapters for the stage. They include Vicky Ireland (Words & Pictures, Polka Theatre), Floella Benjamin (Play School), Janet Ellis (Blue Peter), Richard Briers (Roobard & Custard, Noddy, Watershed Down, Wind in the Willows) and Jonathan Cohen (Play School, Play Away, Jackanory). Its producers include BBC Children’s Michael Cole (Bod, Play School), “an incredible star of Children’s TV”.
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- From 1982 to 1989, Vicky Ireland presented Words & Pictures on BBC TV, set in a children’s library. A story was read each week, with phrases to read from the screen and a ‘magic pencil’ showing how to draw each letter. From 1988 to 2002, Vicky was Artistic Director, the Polka Theatre for children; she later dramatised several of Jacqueline Wilson’s books for the stage. In 1998 she founded the campaign group Action for Children’s Arts; in 2025, it created the Vicky Ireland Award to mark her 80th birthday.
3. Black Beauty to Bod: Chiswick’s illustrators of children’s books
Since Victorian times, Chiswick has been home to many children’s artists and illustrators . They include the Black Beauty illustrator Cecil Aldin, Balliol Salmon who was Angela Brazil’s favourite artist, Joanne Cole, Lisa Read, Lo Cole and AngelaWallace.
See: The Coles of South Parade – from Bod to Scooter Dog
4. Chiswick’s authors of children’s books
Chiswick has been home to many children’s authors and dramatists. They include Floella Benjamin, Michael Cole, Donald Pleasance, Diana Pullein-Thompson, Rob Sprackling, Vicky Ireland and others listed in the children’s section of the Chiswick Timeline of Writers & Books (currently being updated).