Horrible Histories (book series)

Horrible Histories.

The former front cover of the Horrible Histories special France.
Author	Terry Deary; Peter Hepplewhite
Illustrator	Martin Brown; Philip Reeve; Mike Phillips
Cover artist	Martin Brown; Philip Reeve; Kate Sheppard
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Subject	Civilisations, nations, periods and various cities throughout history
Genre	Children's; history
Publisher	Scholastic
Publication date	1993–2013

Horrible Histories is a series of illustrated history books published in the United Kingdom by Scholastic, and part of the Horrible Histories franchise. They are designed to engage children in history by presenting the unusual, gory, or unpleasant aspects in a tongue-in-cheek manner in contrast to the formality of lessons taught in school. The series has proved exceptionally successful in terms of commercial revenue. The books are written by Terry Deary, Peter Hepplewhite and Neil Tonge and illustrated by Martin Brown, Mike Phillips, Phillip Reeve, and Kate Sheppard.

The first titles in the series, The Terrible Tudors and The Awesome Egyptians, were published in June 1993. As of 2011 with more than 60 titles in the series, the books have sold over 25 million copies in over 30 languages. The books have had tie-ins with newspapers such as The Telegraph, as well as audio-book tie-ins with breakfast cereals.

Deary announced that the series would officially come to an end in 2013. The Telegraph said "after Deary was reported to have given up the bestselling series because he had run out of tales to tell.....his publisher would not risk putting out any new ones". Deary says he cannot write a new book unless commissioned, and though he has not been told to stop writing, he has not explicitly been asked to continue, citing the gamble of a new book, "when you've got 60 titles there that you can rework and freshen up for the new audiences that are growing up all the time", as a probable cause.

Deary discovered he had a knack for writing in his high school years. He said, "I was clearly good at it, getting good marks, but no teacher ever said to me: you should try to do something with this". Instead, he pursued acting, and the writing "eventually stemmed from that". Terry Deary studied at drama college and worked as an actor-teacher at the TIE company in Wales. He then became a theatre director and began to write plays for children. Many of his TIE plays were eventually rewritten and adapted into the Horrible Histories book series. Deary said "I was in this small touring company, taking plays for children round Welsh village halls. I did find I had this facility for knocking ideas into scripts".