Horrid Henry is a children's book series by Francesca Simon and illustrated by Tony Ross. The first Horrid Henry book was written and published in 1994 by Orion Books and as of 2015, there have been twenty-four titles published, as well as many other collections, activity books and joke books. Novel Entertainment produced an animated television series for CITV. It is a slice-of-life series featuring the titular Henry, a self-centred, naughty prankster who has issues with authority who will typically be faced with a problem and then will often retaliate in interesting ways that involve trickery, rule-breaking and elaborate practical jokes. Henry has a brother, whom he bullies, called Perfect Peter, who is the exact opposite of Henry.
The Horrid Henry stories are read on audiobook by the actress Miranda Richardson, and published by Orion Audio. The combined sales of all the Horrid Henry books and audiobooks now stands at over twenty million copies. Horrid Henry is published in twenty five languages around the world. In April 2009, the US Sourcebooks' Jabberwocky imprint released four Horrid Henry paperbacks nationwide which included "Horrid Henry," "Horrid Henry's Stinkbomb," "Horrid Henry and the Mega-Mean Time Machine," and "Horrid Henry Tricks the Tooth Fairy." Sourcebooks has since released eleven other Horrid Henry titles. They also have a page with free Activity Pages, Event Kits and a Teacher's Guide for US teachers (http://www.sourcebooks.com/spotlight/horrid-henry-books.html).
In February 2008, an exhibition, "Up to Mischief with Horrid Henry", opened in L.2.5 in Newcastle, England.
In May 2006, CITV announced that an animated TV series of 52 episodes based on the Horrid Henry books had been commissioned from Novel Entertainment, and produced by ''Whitley-Unwin Productions. The show officially launched in October 2006, for Halloween. The series subsequently launched on television in: Germany, France, Ireland, Iceland, Portugal, Scandinavia, Singapore, Poland, South Africa, Turkey & Korea.