Clive King started writing as a child. He once stated that his first story was a script for a Western film. He had articles published in both his school and college magazines before his first book, "Hamid of Aleppo", was published by Macmillan & Co. of New York in 1958. He wrote "The Town that Went South" (1959), "Stig of the Dump" (1963) and "The 22 Letters" (1966) before deciding to become a full-time writer in 1973. King went on to write twenty further novels between 1972 and 2008, but he is probably best known for "Stig of the Dump", which has twice been adapted for television and continues to be taught in British schools.