by Dennis Butts
2. I Suppose You Have Heard of the Tom Brown Question?
Tom Brown’s Schooldays is still in print. Andrew Sanders edited a paperback version in the World’s Classics for the Oxford University Press in 1989. P.G. Wodehouse’s Tales of St Austin’s, a collection of short stories and essays, may be difficult to find in book form, but is available as a free e-book from Penn State University.
3. Was Ballantyne Really Bothered about Cocoa-Nuts?
The Coral Island has been regularly reprinted, notably in a version edited by J.S. Bratton which was published by the Oxford University Press in 1991. The definitive biography of R.M. Ballantyne, giving many details of his quests to find authentic material for his novels, is by Eric Quayle: Ballantyne the Brave: A Victorian Writer and his Family (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1967).
4. How Often Does Charles Dodgson Appear in the ‘Alice’ Books?
There is a library of writing about Charles Dodgson and the ‘Alice’ books. The standard biography is by Morton N. Cohen (London: Macmillan 1996) and the latest annotated edition is by Peter Hunt in the Oxford World’s Classics (2009)
5. What Did Mr March Do in the War Between the States?
Little Women and most of Louisa May Alcott’s other works are still in print, and there is a whole industry about the author and her books: titles include Louisa May: A Modern Biography of Louisa May Alcott by Martha Saxton (London: André Deutsch, 1978) and by Madelon Bedell, The Alcotts: Biography of a Family (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1980). In 2006 Geraldine Brooks published March, a novel in which she portrays Mr March working as a chaplain during the American Civil War.
6. How Long John Silver Lost His Leg and Acquired a Parrot
Stevenson has been the subject of many biographies, and a good recent one is by Claire Harman, Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography (London: HarperCollins, 2005). N.A.M. Rogers wrote the classic account of the eighteenth-century navy in The Wooden World (London: Collins, 1986). The most recent annotated edition of Treasure Island is by Peter Hunt, in Oxford World’s Classics (2011).
7. The Moon, the French Chef and the Missionary
Textual Revisions by H. Rider Haggard
The works of H. Rider Haggard can be found in most second-hand bookshops. Dennis Butts edited editions of both King Solomon’s Mines and Allan Quatermain in the World’s Classics for the Oxford University Press (1989 and 1995). There is a good account of Haggard’s life and works, Rider Haggard: The Great Storyteller, by D.S. Higgins (London: Cassell, 1981).
8. How Did Bevis Grow Ten Years in Fifty-Eight days?
Bevis is available as an e-book, on Project Gutenberg, and second-hand – the Oxford University Press World’s Classics edition (1989) and the abridged edition illustrated by E.H. Shepard (1932) are probably the ones to look out for.
9. How Much Gold Was in Pevensey Castle?
Kipling’s books are in print in many editions. Biographies include those by Andrew Lycett (1999), Harry Ricketts (2000), and David Gilmour (2003); Kipling’s own memoir, Something of Myself is particularly interesting on the ‘Puck’ books.
10. Would Bobbie’s Train Have Stopped in Time?
Almost all Nesbit’s children’s books remain in print; the standard biography is Edith Nesbit: a Woman of Passion by Julia Briggs (1989).
11. Did Isabel Archer Meet Mr Toad?
The Kenneth Grahame Society is the fountainhead of all knowledge on Grahame. Peter Green’s 1959 biography remains definitive, and is available second-hand. The latest annotated edition of The Wind in the Willows is by Peter Hunt (Oxford World’s Classics, 2010).
12. How Did Mary Get to Misslethwaite Manor?
The Secret Garden is available in a bewildering number of editions and versions, including an Oxford World’s Classics annotated edition. Biographies are Ann Thwaite’s Waiting for the Party (1994), and Gretchen Gerzina’s, Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Unpredictable [in some editions, ‘unexpected’] Life of the Author of ‘The Secret Garden’ (2005).
13. Did Beatrix Potter Really Suffer from ’Flu in 1909?
The works of Beatrix Potter are still in print (in various versions) published by her original publisher Frederick Warne. The standard biography, The Tale of Beatrix Potter by Margaret Lane, was published by Warne in 1968. Graham Greene’s essay may be most conveniently found in his Collected Essays (London: The Bodley Head, 1969) pp. 232-240.
14. Why Did Wilfred Owen Change The Little Mermaid in 1909?
There are many English-language versions of Andersen’s Fairy Tales, among which the standard edition is probably The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories, translated by Erik Christian Haugaard, (London: Gollancz, 1974). Owen’s version of The Little Mermaid is found in Wilfred Owen: The Complete Poems and Fragments, edited by Jon Stalworthy, London: Chatto and Windus, the Hogarth Press and Oxford University Press, 2 vols., 1983, vol. 1, pp. 37-57.
15. How Many Adults Are There in Winnie-the-Pooh?
The two most interesting books on Milne are both by Ann Thwaite – the biography (1990) and the copiously illustrated The Brilliant Career of Winnie-the-Pooh (1992).
16. The Strange Disappearance of Europe
Why Didn’t Children’s Books Notice the Approach of Two World Wars?
The history of children’s literature is currently being extensively researched and revised, but adequate accounts can be found in Peter Hunt’s An Introduction to Children’s Literature (1994) and Children’s Literature, an Illustrated History (1995).
17. How Old Was the Great Aunt?
Ransome’s children’s books are available in print and as audiobooks, read by Gabriel Woolf. Hugh Brogan’s The Life of Arthur Ransome (London: Cape, 1984) is the standard biography, and Ransome’s life in Russia is explored in The Last Englishman by Roland Chambers (2012). The Arthur Ransome Society (TARS) has an extremely informative website.
18. Did John Masefield Ever Meet Hitler or Stalin?
The Box of Delights is still in print, although readers need to know that many of these editions have been abridged. The standard biography is John Masefield: A Life, by Constance Babbington Smith (Oxford University Press, 1978). Sanford Sternlicht’s monograph was published by Twayne, Boston, 1977.
19. How Well Did George Orwell Really Know Billy Bunter?
Most of the stories about Billy Bunter and Greyfriars School have been reprinted in book form by Howard Baker in 100 volumes of Magnet facsimiles (London: Howard Baker, 1969-1991). George Orwell’s essay on ‘Boys’ Weeklies’ can be found in George Orwell, The Complete Works, edited by Peter Davison, London: Secker and Warburg, 12 vols., 1986-1998, Vol. 9, pp. 57-79, followed by Frank Richards’s reply, pp. 79-85.
20. Some Questions of Authorship
Further details about G.A.Henty can be found in Peter Newbolt’s classic study G.A.Henty 1832-1902: A Bibliographical Study (Philadelphia: Polyglot Press, second edition, 2005). There is a useful account of P.F.C. Westerman’s career by Nigel Gossop in his Tales of Pluck and Daring: The Life and Work of Percy F. Westerman (Portsmouth Grammar School Monograph No. 24, n.d.) Brian Alderson’s essay on Graham Greene’s children’s books was published in the periodical Children’s Literature in Education, December 2005.
21. Exactly How Big Was the Little House in the Big Woods?
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books are still in print, and there are numerous studies of her life and works. There is a good biography by John E. Miller, Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Woman Behind the Legend (Columbia & London: University of Missouri Press, 1978) and a biography of Laura’s daughter by William Holtz, The Ghost in the Little House: A Life of Rose Wilder Lane (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993).
22. Did Jennings Ever Grow Up or Learn Anything?
Prion Press recently reprinted the first four books about Jennings in The Best of Jennings by Anthony Buckeridge (London: 2009), and second-hand copies of the other books c
an be found quite easily. Anthony Buckeridge’s autobiography, While I Remember, has been published in a revised edition by David Schutte (Petersfield: 1999).
23. Skating on Thin Ice
The Problems of Time in Tom’s Midnight Garden.
Philippa Pearce’s Tom’s Midnight Garden was first published by the Oxford University Press in 1958, and is still available in many editions. The comments of Fred Inglis are found in The Promise of Happiness; Value and Meaning in Children’s Fiction, first published by the Cambridge University Press in 1981, pp. 257-267.
24. Does Anyone Really Write for Children?
The biographies of Enid Blyton, Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, Kenneth Grahame, A.A. Milne, Beatrix Potter and Arthur Ransome already cited provide much food for thought on this topic. Humphrey Carpenter also suggests reasons why many writers, who have written for children, did so in order to explore their own problems in Secret Gardens: A Study of the Golden Age of Children’s Literature (London: Allen and Unwin, 1987).
25. Did the Line Really Hold?
Neil Philips’s essential study, A Fine Anger (1981) is unfortunately rather dated, but can be supplemented by Garner’s own essays The Voice that Thunders (2010). All Garner’s major books are in print.
26. The Mayne Incident
Do Writers for Children Have To Be Nicer than Other Writers?
Mayne has been neglected critically, and almost all of his books are now out of print. They can be found cheaply and extensively second-hand.
27. Who is Killing Cock-Robin?
The Mysterious Death of the Children’s Book
For discussion of the marketing of children’s books, especially Blyton, Dahl and J.K. Rowling, see Popular Children’s Literature in Britain, edited by Julia Briggs, Dennis Butts and M.O. Grenby (London: Ashgate, 2008). For twentieth-century publishing in particular, see Kim Reynolds and Nicholas Tucker (eds.), Children’s Book Publishing in Britain since 1945 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1998).
