John Rowe Townsend (19 May 1922 – 24 March 2014) was a British children's writer and children's literature scholar. His best-known children's novel is The Intruder, which won a 1971 Edgar Award. His best-known academic work is a reference series, Written for Children: An Outline of English Children's Literature (1965), the definitive work of its time on the subject. It was greatly expanded for the first revised edition as Written for Children: An Outline of English-language Children's Literature (1974) and updated for its 2nd to 4th revised editions in 1983, 1987, and 1990 – the last, "A survey of imaginative writing, including poetry and picture books, accompanied by a bibliography of works on children's literature and illustrations from many of the classics of children's literature throu