Joyce Lankester Brisley was born in 1896 and studied art at Lambeth Art School. The first Milly-Molly-Mandy stories were published in 1925 in the Christian Science Monitor and a first collection of these stories was published in book form in1928. An accomplished artist as well as writer, she designed posters and book jackets as well as illustrating the work of other authors. Joyce Lankester Brisley died in 1978 but Milly-Molly-Mandy's popularity lives on. Clara Vulliamy trained in Fine Art at the Ruskin School in Oxford and the Royal Academy in London. After graduating, she concentrated on portraiture and editorial illustrations for magazines and newspapers before writing and illustrating many books for babies and children including Hop Into Bedtime (Penguin) and Keep Love in Your Heart, Little One (Orchard). She lives in Twickenham, West London.