LONDON • British children’s author and illustrator Raymond Briggs, whose creations include “The Snowman” and “Fungus the Bogeyman,” has died. He was 88.

Briggs’ family said he died Tuesday, and thanked staff at Royal Sussex County Hospital, near his home in southern England, “for their kind and thoughtful care of Raymond in his final weeks.”

Born in London in 1934, Briggs studied art and briefly worked in advertising before starting a decades-long career as a children’s illustrator.

He tweaked a fairy-tale story with “Jim and the Beanstalk,” published in 1970, and won a second Greenaway award for “Father Christmas.” Published in 1973, it featured a grumpy but genial Santa Claus and — like many of Briggs’ books — was adapted for television.

“The Snowman,” a bittersweet story in which a boy’s wintry creation magically comes to life, came in 1978. The wordless book has sold more than 5.5 million copies around the world, and a 1982 animated adaptation has been shown on British TV every Christmas since.