CATHERINE STORR was born in 1913. She was educated at St Paul’s Girls’ School in London and then at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she read English Literature. Although her ambition was always to be a writer, she decided to study medicine and went on to work as a psychotherapist. Catherine was married in 1942, and in 1944 had the first of her three daughters. She returned to her writing and created short stories for her young daughters, including the adventures of Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf, which has remained in print ever since it was first published in 1955. Catherine wrote more than thirty much-loved books for children and young adults, which have been translated into many different languages. She died in 2001, aged eighty-seven.