A six-year-old boy whose book will be published in the UK later this month has staked a claim as the world's youngest author.

Christopher Beale completed his 1,500-word, five-chapter novel This and Last Season's Excursions when he was six years and 118 days old, beating the previous Guinness World Record by 42 days.

Christopher, now seven, from Zug in Switzerland, landed a publishing contract with Aultbea Publishing, based in Inverness, and his book will be launched in London on 25 November.

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His story follows a boy and his favourite stuffed animals, his puppy Biscuit, his kitten Daisy and the fierce Big Hinnies, as they rescue owls, fight lions and search for a mysterious moving city, Quarles.

Christopher speaks English and Italian and has his own website, www.cbeale.com, where he says he is working on his second novel, in between playing football and translating This and Last Season's Excursions into Italian.

The eldest of three children, Christopher also plans to learn German later this year.

Christopher said: "I wrote it in my bedroom after lunch every day. My mum asked me to write a story and I ended up writing a whole book."

His father, Theodore Beale, 38, is the author of the Eternal Warriors series of Christian fantasy novels. He said Christopher got the idea for the book from stories he tells his sisters, Elizabeth and Victoria.

The youngest published male in the world is a Brazilian, whose book Dragon Island was published in 2003 when he was aged six years and 160 days. The youngest published female in the world was a four-year-old from Washington DC, whose book How The World Began was published in 1964.