Clive Barker was born in Liverpool, England, at 1:00 am on the morning of 5 October 1952. He grew up there and went to Dovedale and Quarry Bank schools – the same schools that John Lennon of the Beatles had been to a few years before Clive! He then studied English and Philosophy at Liverpool University. Whilst at school he wrote – stories, comic strips and plays – and together with his friends formed a fringe theatre group which mounted productions both in Liverpool and, later, in London. His first books, The Books of Blood, were published in 1984 in England and Clive began to concentrate on writing fiction rather than plays. Publishing both short stories and novels for adults, he moved to Beverly Hills in Los Angeles in 1991 where he next wrote his first published book for ‘all ages’ – The Thief of Always. Clive has directed and produced films, written for television and exhibited his paintings in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, as well as working on comics, models, video games and toys. The first volume of the Abarat series was published in 2002 and made the New York Times’ bestseller lists, as well as winning a number of awards. Abarat II followed in 2004, winning a Bram Stoker award, with volume three – Absolute Midnight – released in September 2011.