Elaine Horseman née Hall (23 November 1925 – April 1999) was a British author of three

children's book Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader. Children's ...

s, which centre on five children in an old

victorian house In Great Britain and former British colonies, a Victorian house generally means any house built during the reign of Queen Victoria. During the Industrial Revolution, successive housing booms resulted in the building of many millions of Victorian ...

and their experiences with a book of

magic spell An incantation, a spell, a charm, an enchantment or a bewitchery, is a magical formula intended to trigger a magical effect on a person or objects. The formula can be spoken, sung or chanted. An incantation can also be performed during ceremo ...

s. Horseman's first novel ''Hubble's Bubble'' was published first in England and in Germany, France, Sweden,

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Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, Spain and Portugal.

Life

Elaine Hall was born in 1925 in

Lichfield Lichfield () is a cathedral city and civil parish in Staffordshire, England. Lichfield is situated roughly south-east of the county town of Stafford, south-east of Rugeley, north-east of Walsall, north-west of Tamworth and south-west o ...

, Staffordshire to Harold Hall, a

Vicar A vicar (; Latin: '' vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pre ...

Choral, and Olive E. Bowey. She was the second of nine children and "grew up in a house very like the Hubbles', in the Cathedral Close at Lichfield in Staffordshire". In 1950 she married Leslie A. Horseman, a computer applications engineer, with whom she moved to Bristol and had two sons: Stephen Thomas and Christopher Michael. She became qualified as a teacher at the

University of Birmingham The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university located in Edgbaston, Birmingham, United Kingdom. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingha ...

and worked as a primary school teacher from 1944, before she gave up teaching in 1962 in order to write. Of the second Hubbles or Boffins Club book, the American journal ''Kirkus Reviews'' complemented the easy transitions between fantasy and reality and observed that the children "keep up a steady banter often pleasantly silly, frequently affected, and always very British." Horseman died in Bristol, April 1999.

Works

* ''Hubble's Bubble'', illustrated by John Sergeant ( Chatto & Windus, 1964); US ed., 1964, * ''The Hubbles' Treasure Hunt'', illus. Sergeant (Chatto & Windus, 1965); US ed., 1966, * ''The Hubbles and the Robot'', illus. Sergeant (Chatto & Windus, 1968) The Boffins' Club comprises the Hubbles -- 12-year-old Alaric and his 8-year-old sister, Sarah, who live with their eccentric grandfather in the town of Stoweminster -- together with Charlotte, Jonathan and Peter Vaughan who arrive for a holiday. In the first novel, ''Hubble's Bubble'', Alaric discovers a book of ancient spells and, with Sarah's help, turns himself into a cat. In ''The Hubbles' Treasure Hunt'', the Boffins Club goes on to experiments three and six in the book. A clue to treasure buried during the English Civil War leads them to try the third experiment, which allows travel back in time. The sixth experiment makes it possible to breathe under water, when a prehistoric mammal, found on another trip into history, becomes lost. In ''The Hubbles and the Robot'', Alaric Hubble brings back a robot housemaid from the 23rd Century.

References

External links

* English women novelists English children's writers English fantasy writers People from Lichfield 1925 births 1999 deaths Date of death missing British women short story writers Women science fiction and fantasy writers 20th-century English women writers 20th-century English novelists 20th-century British short story writers {{UK-child-writer-stub