Terry Pratchett Net Worth

What Was Terry Pratchett's Net Worth?

Terry Pratchett was an English novelist who had a net worth of $40 million at the time of his death in 2015. Also known as Sir Terence David John Pratchett OBE, Terry Pratchett is best known for writing the "Discworld" series, "Good Omens" (with Neil Gaiman), and "Nation." "Discworld" includes more than forty volumes, and the volume titled "Snuff" sold over 55,000 copies in the first three days after publication. During his lifetime, Pratchett sold over 100 million books internationally and was published in more than 40 different languages. In 2010, Terry earned the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. In 1998, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), and in 2009, he was knighted for services to literature. Terry was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease in 2007, and he later announced that he would be donating $1 million to the Alzheimer's Research Trust. Terry Pratchett died on March 12, 2015, at the age of 66.

Early Life

Terry Pratchett was born Terence David John Pratchett on April 28, 1948, in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England. He was the son of mechanic David Pratchett and secretary Eileen Pratchett. Terry studied at Holtspur School and was bullied for having a speech impediment. In 1957, the family briefly lived in Bridgwater, Somerset. In the late '50s, Pratchett attended High Wycombe Technical High School, where he wrote for the school magazine and joined the debate team. During his youth, he became interested in astronomy and science fiction, and he went to science conventions until he was hired by the local newspaper as a trainee journalist. In 1962, 13-year-old Terry published the short story "Business Rivals" in High Wycombe Technical School's magazine. The following year, the story was published commercially under the title "The Hades Business." At the age of 17, Pratchett left school to take an apprenticeship with Bucks Free Press editor Arthur Church. During his apprenticeship, he wrote over 80 stories for the publication's Children's Circle section. Around this time, he also completed the National Council for the Training of Journalists proficiency course.

Career

In the late '60s, Pratchett interviewed the co-director of the publishing company, Colin Smythe Ltd, and mentioned that he had written a manuscript titled "The Carpet People." That company subsequently published the book in 1971, and Terry followed it with "The Dark Side of the Sun" in 1976 and "Strata" in 1981. In 1979, he began working for the South West Region of the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) as a press officer. In 1983, Colin Smythe Ltd published "The Colour of Magic," Pratchett's first "Discworld" novel. After finishing his fourth book in the series, he quit his job at CEGB to write full-time in 1987. In the '90s, Terry was the #1 bestselling author in the U.K. In 1990, Pratchett published "Good Omens," which he co-wrote with Neil Gaiman. In 2019, the book was adapted into an Amazon Prime Video / BBC Two series starring Michael Sheen, David Tennant, Sam Taylor Buck, and Jon Hamm.

The "Bookseller's Pocket Yearbook (2005)" reported that in 2003, Terry's hardback book sales in the U.K. were only behind J.K. Rowling's, amounting to 3.4% of the fiction market. In 2005, "Thud!," the 34th "Discworld" novel, made it onto the New York Times bestseller list, and in 2011, the 39th "Discworld" novel, "Snuff," sold 55,000 copies within its first three days of publication and became the third-fastest-selling hardback novel for adults since the U.K. began keeping track of book sales. Pratchett wrote more than 100 books, and his final work, the "Discworld" novel "The Shepherd's Crown," was posthumously published in August 2015 and won a Locus Award and a Dragon Award.

Getty Images

Personal Life

On October 5, 1968, Terry married Lyn Purves. In 1970, they moved from Gerrards Cross to Rowberrow, Somerset, and they welcomed a daughter, Rhianna, six years later. Rhianna followed in her father's footsteps and became a writer. In 1993, the Pratchett family relocated to Broad Chalke. Terry was a patron of the Friends of High Wycombe Library, and in 2013, he gave a speech at the Beaconsfield Library, which he visited during his childhood. He was known for wearing large black hats, and his style was described as "more that of urban cowboy than city gent." Pratchett was a humanist and an atheist, and he was a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association (now known as Humanists UK). He was also an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. In the summer of 2007, Terry was misdiagnosed as having suffered a minor stroke a few years earlier, and doctors believed it had damaged part of his brain. A few months later, he announced that he had been diagnosed with a form of Alzheimer's disease called Posterior Cortical Atrophy. In 2008, he collaborated with the BBC to make the documentary "Terry Pratchett: Living With Alzheimer's," which won a BAFTA Award.

Death and Legacy

On March 12, 2015, Pratchett passed away from complications of Alzheimer's disease at his home at the age of 66. After his death, Terry's assistant wrote on Pratchett's official Twitter account:

"AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.

Terry took Death's arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night.

The End."

Many public figures paid tribute to Terry, such as Prime Minister David Cameron, author George R. R. Martin, and comedian Ricky Gervais. He was memorialized in East London graffiti, and two video game companies added elements to their games that were named in his honor. Pratchett's humanist funeral took place on March 25th in Salisbury. In September 2015, Terry's estate announced the Sir Terry Pratchett Memorial Scholarship, a $100,000 scholarship that will be "awarded by the University of South Australia in perpetuity, every two years and will support a student to undertake a Master's by research at UniSA's Hawke Research Institute, covering stipend, travel and accommodation expenses as well as research costs."

Awards and Honors

In 1987, Pratchett won a Children of the Night Award from The Dracula Society for "Mort," and in 1989, he received a British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Award in the Novel category for "Pyramids." He won the Prix Ozone for Foreign Fantasy Novel for "Guards! Guards!" in 1998 and "Reaper Man" in 1999. In 2000, Terry received the Lord Ruthven Award for Fiction for "Carpe Jugulum," and "The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents" earned him a Carnegie Medal for Writing in 2001 and a Geffen Award in the Young Adult category in 2014. In 2012, "Good Omens" won a FantLab Book of the Year Award for Translated Novel/Collection. "A Hat Full of Sky" received several awards, including a Locus Award for Young Adult Book (2005), a Mythopoeic Award for Children's Literature (2005), and a Geffen Award for Fantasy (2009). "Nation" won a Geffen Award in that category in 2010, and it also earned a Los Angeles Book Prize for Young Adult Novel (2008) and a Boston Globe Horn Book Award for Fiction & Poetry (2009). The British Book Awards named Pratchett the Fantasy and Science Fiction Author of the Year in 1994 and gave him the Outstanding Achievement Award in 2010. He also received the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award (2009), Lifetime Achievement Awards from the World Fantasy Awards (2010) and the Forry Awards (2012), the American Library Association's Margaret Edwards Award (2012), a Karl Edward Wagner Award from the British Fantasy Awards (2011), the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association's Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award (2015), and the Eleanor Farjeon Award (2015). In 2016, he was posthumously inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

Real Estate

From 1970 to 1994, Pratchett lived in a home known as Gaze Cottage in Rowberrow, Somerset. The owner who bought the four-bedroom home from Terry put it on the market for £800,000 in 2021.

Who's Richer?

Terry
Pratchett

Compare!

Neil
Gaiman