Susan Lillian "Sue" Townsend (born April 2, 1946) is the author of the Adrian Mole series of books. She has suffered from diabetes for many years as a result of which she was registered blind in 2001.

[edit] Biography

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole was reputedly based on her children's experiences at Mary Linwood Comprehensive School in Leicester. Several of the teachers who appear in the book (such as Mr. Dock and Miss Fossington-Gore) are based on actual staff who worked at the school in the early 1980s. When the book was televised, it was mostly filmed at a different school nearby. Mary Linwood Comprehensive was closed in 1997.

Sue went to Glen Hills Primary school where the school secretary was named 'Mrs Claricotes' - as is the school secretary in the books. She then went to South Wigston High School.

Sue has four children: Sean, Daniel, Victoria and Elizabeth.

At the time of writing the first Mole book, Sue Townsend was living on the Saffron Lane Estate, a stone's-throw away from the house in which Joe Orton was brought up.

The first two books in the series appealed to many readers as a realistic and humorous treatment of the inner life of an adolescent boy. They also captured something of the zeitgeist of Britain during the Thatcher period.

[edit] Works

Novels:Adrian Mole Series

• The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ (1982), her best selling book, and the best-selling new British fiction book of the 1980s.
• The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole (1984)
• The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole (1989)
• Adrian Mole From Minor to Major (1991) is an omnibus of the first 3 Adrian Mole Books, and includes Adrian Mole and the Small Amphibians.
• Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years (1993)
• Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years (1999)
• Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction (2004)

Novels:Other Works

• Rebuilding Coventry (1988)
• Mr Bevan's Dream (1989)
• The Queen and I (1992) - a story about the British royal family living a normal life on an urban housing estate
• Ghost Children (1997)
• Number Ten (2002)
• Queen Camilla (2006)

Plays:

• Womberang (Soho Poly - 1979)
• The Ghost of Daniel Lambert (Leicester Haymarket Theatre - 1981)
• Dayroom (Croydon Warehouse Theatre - 1981)
• Captain Christmas and the Evil Adults (Phoenix Arts Theatre - 1982)
• Bazaar and Rummage (Royal Court Theatre - 1982)
• Groping for Words (Croydon Warehouse - 1983)
• The Great Celestial Cow (Royal Court Theatre and tour - 1984)
• The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4-The Play (Leicester Phoenix - 1984)
• Disneyland it Ain't (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs - 1989)
• Ten Tiny Fingers, Nine Tiny Toes (Library Theatre, Manchester - 1989)
• The Queen and I (Vaudeville Theatre - 1994, toured Australia in the summer of 1996 and was entitled The Royals Down Under)

Non-fiction:

• Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman aged 55 3/4 (2001)