Dick King-Smith unfinished book has been completed by his great-granddaughter

Dick King-Smith’s great-granddaughter has completed an unfinished manuscript by the late author and will publish next year.

The animal-loving children’s author Dick King-Smith died in 2011 at the age of 88 and left behind an amazing legacy of over 100 books including The Sheep-Pig, which many will know through the movie adaptation ‘Babe’.

King-Smith had an unfinished manuscript for the story of a rabbit with a great sense of smell, Ambrose, and a little girl called Biddy, which was discovered in a box in 2011.

The story has now been completed by King-Smith’s great-granddaughter Josie Rogers, and will be published next March and will be titled Ambrose Follows His Nose.

Josie Rogers- Dick King-Smith’s great-granddaughter

“When the manuscript was discovered the story concept was fairly fleshed out and already featured our two main characters, Ambrose, the rabbit with the sense of smell of a bloodhound and Biddy, the plucky little girl who desperately wants to train and adopt him. However, the plot was only about halfway along so I added around six totally new chapters to complete the story,” said Rogers, who works as an editor in Glasgow. “I had to rework and edit earlier chapters to fit in with the new plot arc but I tried to keep as much of Dick’s original text as I could, especially the funny bits.”

Rogers added several characters to the plot, including a sister for Ambrose, named Roly, who actually became a big part of the story. “I knew I wanted to do this from quite early on because she fulfilled certain tropes that feature in lots of Dick’s books – extremely rebellious little girls, and animals who subvert their ‘normal’ lifestyles – that weren’t as obvious in this manuscript,” she said.

“Looking at the original and current word count and accounting for editing, I’d say it’s near enough a 50-50 split effort between me and Grampa, which makes it feel like a real collaboration.”

“Although Grampa Dick always encouraged me to write I never thought I’d get the chance to collaborate with him. The prospect was somewhat daunting but being able to finish the story he started so long ago has been a true joy.”

“I don’t think it’s exactly what Grampa Dick would have written but I think he’d like it. More importantly, I think it would make him laugh.”

Steph Laberis was brought in to provide the black-and-white illustrations, and the artists said that as an animal lover herself she “jumped at the chance to work on a Dick King-Smith book”.

Ambrose Follows His Nose will be published by Puffin just ahead of the centenary of King-Smith’s birth on 27 March 2022, and described the children’s story as an “instant classic – full of Dick’s trademark animals, warmth and humour”.