Saville, Malcolm: - Malcolm Saville (1901-1982) was a prolific English children's writer who wrote his books while working in the publicity departments of London publishers. The progressive children's author Geoffrey Trease observed that Saville was an author with 'an intense feeling' for the English countryside and that this novel contains the 'essential' Saville, whose reputation is rooted in the many series of adventure books that he wrote between the years 1943 and 1978 and is most associated with his 'Lone Pine' series of novels. Many of Saville's books were dramatised for the BBC's Children's Hour, and he apparently received 3,000 letters a week from young readers. We are told that Saville, a good publicist, answered all his fan mail personally (quite a feat if true) and he certainly sent out regular newsletters to his fans.