I never set out to become 'famous.' I mean when you're 14 you think 'I'm gonna become a writer and people will want my autograph and that'll be cool ' but you grow up and you learn that's just not how the world works. I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably never be published and if I did it probably wouldn't be a big deal.

In the first book of my Discworld series published more than 26 years ago I introduced Death as a character there was nothing particularly new about this - death has featured in art and literature since medieval times and for centuries we have had a fascination with the Grim Reaper.

Between 1910 and 1950 approximately 350 lives of Jesus were published in the English language alone.