The Gruffalo: one of publishing’s most lucrative monsters

When Julia Donaldson set out to write a children’s book featuring a mouse who would venture through

“the deep dark wood” fending off a series of predators with wit and cunning, she little expected to spark a global phenomenon, says

The Economist.

Yet 25 years on, The Gruffalo has become “one of the most lucrative monsters in children’s publishing”. With the help of illustrator Axel Scheffler, Donaldson, 75, created an enduring classic that, to date, has sold 11.6 million copies worldwide and been translated into

107 languages. “Whereas some books cause grownups to groan inwardly when a child selects them at bedtime”, this fable, written in rhyming couplets, “is almost as fun to read aloud as it is to listen to”. Many fans think its sequel, The Gruffalo’s Child, is even better than the original. Donaldson’s influences – Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Ogden Nash, Flanders and Swann – bear testimony to her years as “a jobbing songwriter” for shows such as the 1970s Play Away, says The Guardian. Hailing from a “musical, lefty” Hampstead family, her writing career took off relatively late at 44 when an editor listened to a tape of her songs and thought one would make a good picture book. The result – A Squash and a Squeeze (1993) – was her first collaboration with Scheffler. Six years later, The Gruffalo stormed onto the scene. Having spawned endless spin-offs – stage versions, animations, toys, costumes, biscuits, and slippers – Donaldson, who has written more than 200 other children’s books, thinks The Gruffalo “is a little spoilt”, says The Daily Telegraph. “[What] I like is when people single out one of my other books as their favourite,” she says. But The Gruffalo’s “outsized presence in her oeuvre” has made her a titan in children’s literature. “Her net worth is now “probably well into nine figures.”

Some worry Donaldson’s “gargantuan brand” eclipses other writers. Yet she is “generous about sharing the spoils around”, working with different illustrators and publishers. Above all, she is innovative. Fellow children’s author Frank Cottrell-Boyce claims “she dominates in the way Michelangelo dominated The Renaissance”... She pushes the envelope.”