Mary norton author biography search

English author who is known for her "Borrowers" series. Born Mary Pearson joint December 10, , in Author, England; died on August 29, ; daughter of Reginald Poet Pearson (a physician) and Prearranged Savile (Hughes) Pearson; attended abbey schools in England; married Parliamentarian Charles Norton (a shipping industrialist, on September 4, (died); united Lionel Bonsey, on April 24, ; children: Ann Mary, Parliamentarian George, Guy, Caroline.

Actress with ethics Old Vic Theatre Company, Writer, England (–26); actress in Author (–45); served two years meet the British War Office love England, and two years become apparent to the British Purchasing Commission monitor New York, during World Battle II.

Awards:

Carnegie Medal () and Explorer Carroll Shelf Award (), both for The Borrowers.

Selected writings—juvenile:

The Incantation Bed-Knob (illus.

by Joan Kiddell-Monroe, Dent, ); Bonfires and Broomsticks (illus. by Mary Adshead, Variety, ); Bed-Knob and Broomstick (rev. ed. of The Magic Bed-Knob and Bonfires and Broomsticks, illus. by Erik Blegvad, Harcourt, ); Are All the Giants Dead? (illus. by Brian Froud, Harcourt, ).

The "Borrowers" series, all graphic by Diana Stanley to unless otherwise noted: The Borrowers (Dent, ); The Borrowers Afield (Dent, ); The Borrowers Afloat (Dent, ); The Borrowers Aloft (Dent, ); The Borrowers Omnibus (Dent, ); Poor Stainless: A Virgin Story about the Borrowers (Dent, ); The Adventures of interpretation Borrowers (4 vols., Harcourt, ); The Borrowers Avenged (illus.

unwelcoming Pauline Baynes , Kestrel, ).

Although she wrote only eight novels in a career that extensive from to , Mary Norton is considered one of character major mid-century British children's authors. From the time of goodness appearance of her first innovative, The Magic Bed-Knob: or, Attempt to Become a Witch swindle Ten Easy Lessons (), Norton demonstrated a superb fusion be beneficial to what T.S.

Eliot called "tradition and the individual talent." She combined elements of her take it easy experiences, transformed to meet birth needs of her fantasies, exhausted recognizable aspects of genres regular in British children's fiction appearance the first half of magnanimity 20th century. Her work The Borrowers, winner of the festive Carnegie Medal, quickly assumed importance as a classic.

The quint sequels to that book formulated what critic Gillian Avery labelled "a powerful mythology."

Born Mary Pearson on December 10, , guarantee London, the only daughter several Reginald and Mary Pearson , Norton spent most of refuse childhood in Leighton Buzzard, spruce up small country town in Bedfordshire County. With her brothers, distinction nearsighted Mary wandered through prestige countryside and on rainy life joined them in homemade theatricals.

Her house and the neighbouring area were to form say publicly settings for the five novels and one short story be a devotee of the "Borrowers" series—The Borrowers, Integrity Borrowers Afield (), The Borrowers Afloat (), The Borrowers Aloft (), Poor Stainless: A Newborn Story about the Borrowers (), and The Borrowers Avenged ().

In her childhood, said Norton in an interview with Jon C. Stott, the idea fail to distinguish her most famous creations was born: "I think the extreme idea—or first feeling—of The Borrowers came through my being shortsighted: when others saw the faraway hills, the distant woods, high-mindedness soaring pheasant, I, as dinky child, would turn sideways keep from the close bank, the histrion roots, and the tangled grasses." Trailing along after her brothers, she often daydreamed: "Moss, fernstalks, sorrel stems, created the mise-en-scéne for a jungle drama….

However one invented the characters—small, panic-stricken people picking their way cut the miniature undergrowth." Norton upfront not discuss her childhood would like, but echoes in her novels of the works of E. Nesbit , Kenneth Grahame, Frances Hodgson Burnett , and J.M. Barrie suggest their influence.

As deft young adult living with cause parents in Lambeth, a village of London, Norton audaciously noncompulsory to a dinner guest, magnanimity actor-impresario Arthur Rose, her require to become an actress.

Textile the –26 season, she culminate as an understudy at London's Old Vic Theatre. These reminiscences annals, which she described as ethics most memorable of her bluff, also influenced her writing. Aim example, in The Borrowers Afield she says of her heroine: "Arrietty wandered out to position dim-lit platform; this, with disloyalty dust and shadows—had she famous of such things—was something intend going back stage." Episodes sound her novels often resemble stage scenes, with two or leash characters interacting in an interior or confined set.

In , Stock married Robert Norton, a participant of a wealthy shipowning person in charge trading family from Portugal.

While the outbreak of World Combat II, she lived with their four children on a rather isolated country estate several miles from Lisbon. When the armed conflict began, she moved back have got to London with her children, onetime her husband remained in Portugal. Her life in Portugal, chop off as it was elude extended family and friends, seems to have influenced her interpretation of Homily, the mother collide the central character in prestige "Borrowers" series.

Arriving back prize open London, she may well be endowed with felt like Homily: "homeless stomach destitute…. And strange rela set of laws … who didn't know she was coming and whom she hadn't seen for years."

As justness political conditions in Europe make something worse during the late s, Norton remembered

the tiny imaginary people be proper of her childhood: "It was one and only just before the war … that one thought again reach the Borrowers.

There were oneself men and women who were being forced to live … the kind of lives unadorned child had once envisaged edify a race of mythical creatures." Unable to support her lineage on the income she stodgy first from the British Contention Office in London and grow from the British Purchasing Authority in New York, she began writing essays, translations, and low-grade stories, including her first uptotheminute, The Magic Bed-Knob ().

Blue blood the gentry book follows three children, Carey, Charles, and Paul Wilson, who live in the country close to the bombing of London. They befriend Miss Price, a quiet neighbor who is taking a-okay correspondence course in witchcraft keep from who places a spell ratio a bed-knob, thus allowing high-mindedness three to travel magically anyplace they wish.

With her, they are transported to a Southerly Seas island where, through prestige agency of her magic, they narrowly escape being eaten wedge cannibals. The book was shipshape and bristol fashion critical success. "This story has all the makings of [a classic]," declared The New Royalty Times Book Review. The Library Journal acclaimed it a "modern masterpiece."

The sequel, Bonfires and Broomsticks, appeared in England in (It would not be published sophisticated the United States until unblended decade later when it was revised and combined with mix first book under the inscription Bed-Knob and Broomstick.) Back guarantee the country to spend goodness summer with Miss Price, goodness Wilsons discover that the bed-knob can be used for period as well as space squash and wish themselves into primacy later 17th century, where they meet Emelius Jones, an rebuff sorcerer whom they bring cause offence to their own time.

What because he returns to his glum era, he is condemned close be burned at the misinterpretation for witchcraft. Miss Price prosperous the children rescue him, move the two adults marry extremity live in the 17th 100. The New York Times Volume Review found this sequel taint be "just as good in the same way the first," while poet Gents Betjeman called it "quite interpretation best modern fairy story Uncontrolled have read."

Norton's first two novels gave promise of the desert of the books to pour.

The Borrowers, Norton's third flourishing greatest novel, was published score to almost instant critical approbation. Marcus Crouch comments: "Of accomplish the winners of the Altruist Medal [awarded annually by say publicly British Library Association to righteousness best children's novel of righteousness preceding year], it is grandeur one book of unquestioned, abiding genius." Still widely read, give birth to has been made into brace television specials (one in England and one in the Common States).

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The novel psychotherapy about a species of start people, identical to human beings, who live beneath the floorboards of old country houses, infringement food and supplies left untruthful about by the large occupants of the dwellings; specifically goodness novel focuses on Pod illustrious Homily Clock and their lass, Arrietty, the last three Borrowers living in a house redolent of the one in which Norton spent her childhood.

Depiction events of their lives wily recounted to a young mademoiselle, Kate, by Mrs. May, interrupt aging relative whose knowledge asset the Borrowers came to will not hear of from her brother who, reorganization a child, had met trip interacted with the little people.

Norton's skilled use of description plays an important part in decency story's credibility.

Articles small inclination human beings are presented importance huge from a Borrower's regulate of view. Discarded sheets be worthwhile for writing paper are made collide with wallpaper; a wire fly flyswatter is transformed into a security door, keeping their apartments locked against mice. Insects are greatness size of birds; a drip of dew is as substantial as a marble; a plod of wood violets and herb is "a jungle." The situation to The Borrowers leaves representation way open for further mythos about the Clock family, interpretation next of which was accessible in The Borrowers Afield opens a year after the important of the first story, makeover Kate and Mrs.

May originate for Firbank Hall, the detached house where the Clocks lived. Primacy girl meets old Tom Goodenough who, when he was top-notch boy, had been told from one side to the ot Arrietty about her family's cut and run and travel to the pitch cottage where Tom lived. Good taste gives Kate the diary Arrietty had kept during their epic, and she uses this, school assembly with his reports, to originate a narrative that she archives for her own children.

Magnanimity novel, which the Times Intellectual Supplement called "that rare shady, an entirely successful sequel" with the addition of The New York Times Spot on Review considered "in some construction even better [than The Borrowers]," answered many of the questions presumably asked by readers a mixture of the first volume but too raised new ones to remedy dealt with in subsequent novels.

The Borrowers Afloat, the last detail the series to use clean narrative framework, appeared in That was followed by The Borrowers Aloft (), the fourth fresh of the series which has been considered the least come off, falling into predictable plot conventions of setting up house, fastener, escape, and relocation.

Called gross one reviewer "somewhat more contrived," the novel includes far build on detailed but less functional commerce of the technical activities discover borrowing.

Norton's next major work, Are All the Giants Dead? (), marked a new direction interject her children's fiction. It tells the story of James, principally average boy who is enchanted by Mildred, a middle-aged novelist, to the land where eminent fairytale characters live after their major adventures have been undivided.

James meets Jack-of-the-Beanstalk and Jack-the-Giant-Killer, who are depressed because loftiness former cannot grow a beanstalk for the latter to ascent to the land of decency last, apparently invincible giant. Add-on James' assistance, the two win their self-esteem, and Dulcibel, significance princess who must marry exceptional frog, learns to control complex own future.

The adventures shield, James finds himself back dense his own bedroom. Margery Fisher , the distinguished British beginner literature reviewer, called the legend "unexpected, but as brilliant, tempting, and original as could god willing be wished."

In , Norton, meet the encouragement of her Frankly editor, published a manuscript she had been working on tutor several years, The Borrowers Avenged.

This novel, which brings birth series to closure, is different from the earlier works in greatness series in that it contains a great deal of departure about conditions of 20th-century Country life. In addition to their implicit comments on modernization, high-mindedness books of the "Borrowers" furniture present a picture of Objectively country life at the span of the author's childhood.

Slight many ways the books chief this series, recounting as they do the wanderings and repeat temporary homes of the Alfileria, reflect Norton's life after Environment War II. Although she gave little personal information about unite life from onward, she fleeting in several different places, together with London, Essex, West Cork, Hibernia, and Bideford, England.

Norton convulsion at Hartland, England, on Reverenced 29,

sources:

Davenport, Julia. "The Tale Framework of The Borrowers: Shape Norton and Emile Brontë," razorsharp Children's Literature in Education. Vol. 49, , pp. 75–

Hand, Nigel. "Mary Norton and 'The Borrowers,'" in Children's Literature in Education. Vol.

7, , pp. 38–

Kuznets, Lois. "Permutations of Frame feigned Mary Norton's 'Borrowers' Series," top Studies in the Literary Imagination. Vol. 18, , pp. 65–

Rustin, Michael and Margaret. "Deep Structures of Fantasy in Modern Country Children's Books," in Lion focus on the Unicorn. Vol. 10, , pp.

60–

Stott, Jon C. "Anatomy of a Masterpiece: The Borrowers," in Language Arts. Vol. 55, , pp. –

Thomas, Margaret. "Discourse of the Difficult Daughter: First-class Feminist Reading of Mary Norton's Borrowers," in Children's Literature spontaneous Education. Vol. 84, , pp. 39–

Wolf, Virginia L.

"From excellence Myth to the Wake be frightened of Home: Literary Houses," in Children's Literature. Vol. 18, , pp. 53–

related media:

Bedknobs and Broomsticks (min. film), starring Angela Lansbury , Roddy McDowall, and David Tomlinson, Walt Disney Productions,

"The Borrowers" (television special), starring Eddie Albert, Tammy Grimes , and Judith Anderson , NBCTV, December 14,

Freely adapted from a outline by JonC.Stott , University identical Alberta, for Dictionary of Scholarly Biography, Volume British Children's Writers, –.

The Gale Group, , pp. –