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Fidra Books
Fidra Books is a publisher based in Edinburgh specializing in reissues of bygone children's books, mainly those from the 1940s onwards. Foundation and range The firm was set up in 2005 by Malcolm and Vanessa Robertson, who also opened Edinburgh's one dedicated Children's Bookshop in November 2007, and in 2010 a general bookshop in the same street. Fidra Books specializes in reprinting children's books that it believes to be wrongly neglected. Fidra Books enables collectors to acquire books they have been searching for and for new readers to find these older stories. Its books range from 1930s adventure stories to 1960s fantasy novels. Publishing The firm's first publication was Margot Pardoe's ''The Far Island'' in 1936. Its other output has covered pony books by authors such as K. M. Peyton and Josephine Pullein-Thompson and titles in classic genres such as adventure and school stories. Other Fidra Books authors have included Olivia FitzRoy, Anne Digby, Victoria Walker, Pri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth. Edinburgh is Scotland's List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, second-most populous city, after Glasgow, and the List of cities in the United Kingdom, seventh-most populous city in the United Kingdom. Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is the seat of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and the Courts of Scotland, highest courts in Scotland. The city's Holyrood Palace, Palace of Holyroodhouse is the official residence of the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, British monarchy in Scotland. The city has long been a centre of education, particularly in the fields of medicine, Scots law, Scottish law, literature, philosophy, the sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margot Pardoe
Margot Pardoe (8 August 1902 – 5 January 1996) was a British writer of children's fiction under the name M. Pardoe. Her career spanned over 20 years from the late 1930s to the early 1960s. She is known best for the Bunkle adventure series. Pardoe published over 20 books, most of which were extremely popular as well as positively reviewed. ''The Times Literary Supplement'' characterised ''The Far Island'' as "realistic as well as charming"; some of her later books were featured on ''Children's Hour'' when the part of Bunkle was taken by a young Billie Whitelaw, under the supervision of producer Trevor Hill. Life Margot Pardoe's childhood provided her with many of the settings for her books: she was born in London, educated in Hertfordshire and Paris, and had holidays in the continent and remote locations in Britain.Robertson, iii She married John Swift in 1934 and settled in Somerset where she began ''The Far Island''. She wrote under her maiden name but only used her first in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pony Book
Pony books, pony stories or pony fiction form a genre in children's literature of stories featuring children, teenagers, ponies and horses, and the learning of equestrian skills, especially at a pony club or riding school. Development of genre The 1877 novel ''Black Beauty'', although about a horse and not a pony, is seen as a forerunner of pony book fiction. Pony books themselves began to appear in the late 1920s. In 1928 British lifestyle magazine '' Country Life'' published Golden Gorse's ''The Young Rider'' which went to a second edition in 1931, and a third in 1935. In the preface to the third edition, the author wrote: "Since then the outlook on children and their ponies has changed very much for the better." She also noted an increase in equestrian pastimes: "Five children seem to be learning to ride today for one who was learning seven years ago." Critical commentary The pony book genre is "frequently deemed idealistic," "cater ngfor those typical fantasies of perfect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josephine Pullein-Thompson
Josephine Mary Wedderburn Pullein-Thompson MBE (3 April 1924 – 19 June 2014), sometimes known as Josephine Mann, was a British writer known for her pony books. She was a leading member of the Pony Club and PEN International. Her mother and two sisters, Christine and Diana also wrote and they created a large number of books and many of them were on the theme of horses. Life Pullein-Thompson was born on 3 April 1924 into a notable family. Her father, Harold Pullein-Thompson, had the Military Cross and her mother, Joanna Cannan, was a prolific and successful author. She was the second child as she had an elder brother who would adopt his mother's name to be a successful playwright of comedies as Denis Cannan. She also had two younger sisters (who were twins) and all the children would be writers. The family home was a villa in the suburb of Wimbledon where her father would have two seats on the centre court. Her father was badly wounded and in frequent pain, he had earned the Mili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olivia FitzRoy
Olivia Gwyneth Zoe FitzRoy, (May 27, 1921 – December 24, 1969) was a British author of children's books. She was the granddaughter of Muriel FitzRoy, 1st Viscountess Daventry, raised to the peerage as widow of Edward FitzRoy, the Speaker of the House of Commons from 1928 until his death in 1943; her mother was a member of the famous Guinness family. Olivia FitzRoy was one of five sisters. The family spent their summers in Scotland, the setting of her books. They were there in 1939 when her father, a naval officer, decided that they should remain in Inverewe for the duration of World War II. The area was remote; FitzRoy wrote her first book, ''Orders to Poach'' (which told the story of the Stewart children receiving unusual instructions from their overseas father) to entertain her two younger sisters, Barbara (now Ormrod) and the late Amelia (now Jessel).Ormrod, iii It was published by Collins, as Billy Collins was a friend of the family. The second, ''Steer by the Stars'' and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Digby
Anne Digby (born 5 May 1943 in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey) is a prolific British children's writer best known for the Trebizon series published between 1978 and 1994. Digby attended North London Collegiate School before becoming a magazine journalist, and lived in Paris for a time. She then worked as a press officer for Oxfam in Oxford. Her first novel was ''A Horse Called September'' (1975). From 1978 to 1994 she wrote fourteen school story novels set in the fictional Cornish boarding school Trebizon. She has also written the ''Me, Jill Robinson'' series of books, the ''Jug Valley Juniors'' series, ''Quicksilver Horse'' and ''The Big Swim of the Summer''. She added six books to Enid Blyton's 1940–52 ''Naughtiest Girl'' series, 1999 to 2001 – which publisher Hachette catalogues as Naughtiest Girl, volumes 5 to 10 – and created the ''Three R Detective'' books for younger readers. Fidra Books of Edinburgh has published a collector's edition of ''Fifth Year Friendships a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victoria Walker
Victoria Clayton, née Walker, (born 1947) is a British author. She began writing at her parents' house in Cambridgeshire (after a couple of years living a bohemian lifestyle in London). When dining one night in London she sat next to Bill McCreadle of publisher Rupert Hart-Davis who agreed to look at her manuscript, and in 1969, when she was just 21, he decided to publish what became ''The Winter of Enchantment''. Its sequel, ''The House Called Hadlows'', was published in 1972. The books concern a boy called Sebastian who enters another world through a magic mirror. He meets a girl called Melissa who has been imprisoned by an evil Enchanter and resolves to rescue her. In the second book Sebastian and Melissa release a house from a curse made by the Evil One. After spending four years living in rural Wales and the Isle of Skye, Clayton went to the University of Cambridge to study English. After graduation she married and spent many years living in the country and bringing up her ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Primrose Cumming
Primrose Cumming (1915–2004) was a British writer of children's books. Her writing career spanned over 30 years, and produced some fine examples of the pony book genre, combining accurate observation of human and equine with a certain wry humour. In her most sought-after title ''Silver Snaffles'', Tattles is brilliantly observed: by turns tetchy and patient, he is the archetypal family pony who has long-sufferingly taught generations of children to ride; in contrast, Smug, the evil pony in ''Silver Eagle Carries On'' has a mind strictly her own: “Smug, of course, had no intention of jumping anything, but she held upon the right course until the last second, when she adroitly stepped to one side.”Badger, ii Primrose Cumming was equally good at human characters: the Silver Eagle Riding School series has Josephine, the brilliant, but irritating middle sister, alternately a torment and an inspiration to her elder sister Mary. Tabby and Martin Mead in ''The Wednesday Pon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elinor Lyon
Elinor Bruce Lyon (17 August 1921 – 28 May 2008) was an English children's author from a Scottish family background. Several of her novels are set on the Highland coast, others in Wales. They have been seen to feature "strong girls and sensitive boys and shared leadership between the sexes".''The Guardian'' obituary by Julia Eccleshare, 24 June 2008Retrieved 7 February 2013./ref> Background Lyon was born in Guisborough, Yorkshire. She was educated privately and then at St George's School, Edinburgh and Headington School, Oxford (1934–1938). ''The Independent'' obituary by Nicholas Tucker, 6 June 2008Retrieved 3 January 2013./ref> She was strongly aware of her Scottish roots. Elinor Lyon's father was the poet and headmaster P. H. B. Lyon. After a period in Switzerland, she returned to Oxford to read English at Lady Margaret Hall, just as the Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mabel Esther Allan
Mabel Esther Allan (11 February 1915 – 14 May 1998) was a British author of about 170 children's books. Biography Mabel Esther Allan was born at Wallasey on the Wirral Peninsula, then in Cheshire (now Merseyside). She decided to be an author at the age of eight; her father bought her a writing desk and taught her how to type. When the family moved, Allan was given a study in which to write. Her eyesight was poor, which her parents 'took...very badly and wrongly'.Allan, i. It was such a taboo subject that she never discussed it with anyone until she was almost thirty, when it spontaneously improved. Her eyesight was the reason she disliked school. She published a few short stories in the 1930s, and had longer submissions accepted, but her activities were interrupted by the Second World War.Robertson, Fidra Books website. Allan served in the Women's Land Army and taught at a crowded school in Liverpool. In 1945 she sent the manuscript of ''The Glen Castle Mystery'' to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruby Ferguson
Ruby Constance Annie Ferguson, née Ashby (28 July 1899 – 11 November 1966), was an English writer of popular fiction, including children's literature, romances and mysteries as R. C. Ashby and Ruby Fergunson. She is best known today for her novel ''Lady Rose and Mrs. Memmary'' and her ''Jill'' books, a series of Pullein-Thompsonesque pony books for children and young adults. Life and career Ruby Constance Annie Ashby was born in Hebden Bridge and raised in Reeth, North Yorkshire. Her father was the Reverend David Ashby, a Wesleyan minister, and Ferguson herself later became a lay officer of the Methodist church. She received her education at Bradford Girls Grammar School and then at St Hilda's College at the University of Oxford, where she read English from 1919 to 1922, gaining a normal BA and, a few years later, the Oxford MA. She then moved to Manchester and took a job as a secretary, supplementing her income by writing a regular column for the ''British Weekly'', and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Publishing Companies Of Scotland
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's ''Physics'' is called a b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
