Peter Malcolm de Brissac Dickinson OBE FRSL (16 December 1927 – 16 December 2015) was an English author and poet, best known for children's books and detective stories. Dickinson won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association for both Tulku (1979) and City of Gold (1980), each being recognised as the year's outstanding children's book by a British subject. Through 2020 he is one of eight writers to win two Carnegies; no one has won three. He was also a highly commended runner-up for Eva (1988) and four times a commended runner-up. For his contributions as a children's writer Dickinson was a finalist for the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 2000. Life Dickinson was born in Livingstone, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), the second of the four sons of a man in the colonial service and a farmer's daughter. As a child he loved stories about knights in armour and explorers, such as Ivanhoe and King Solomon's Mines, and read "anything by Kipling", who influenced his writing greatly. His parents moved to England so that he and his brothers could attend English schools. His father died suddenly but Dickinson entered Saint Ronan's prep school in 1936 with support from the family. His novel Hindsight is based on the period in Devon after the school was evacuated from Kent during the war. He entered Eton College in 1941. Dickinson remained at Eton until 1946. After completing his National Service (1946–48), he studied at King's College, Cambridge, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1951. For seventeen years he worked as assistant editor, resident poet and reviewer for Punch magazine. His first two books were published in 1968 and were very well received, one mystery for adults and one science fiction for children. He completed sequels to both debut novels and left Punch to be a full-time author next year. He continued to write poetry for entertainment and occasionally on commission. Dickinson married Mary Rose Barnard in 1953; the couple had two daughters and two sons including the author John Dickinson. Mary Rose died in 1988, the same year that their first two grandchildren were born. As of 2009 there are six grandchildren. In 1983, Dickinson had met Robin McKinley, an American author of fantasy, some written for children. After a long friendship, they married in 1991. She said in 2009 that she cannot judge the literary work of people she