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Archives: Book Authors
Nesbit E.
The greatest wish of Edith Nesbit (1858 – 1924) was to be remembered as a poet, but her poetry, like much of her adult fiction, is long forgotten. She came to write children’s stories in later life, and was a responsible for a string of enduring titles, the most notable being ‘The Railway Children’. She has been described as ‘the first modern writer for children’, although Wordsworth readers have also been introduced to her talents as a writer of supernatural fiction.
Montgomery Lucy
Few writers can claim to have had a first novel more succesful than the Canadian writer L(ucy) M(aud) Montgomery (1874 – 1942) with ‘Anne of Green Gables’. It sold over one million copies during her lifetime, and has been in print ever since, together with the various sequels that she wrote.
Marryat Captain Frederick
Captian Frederick Marryat (1792 – 1848) spent most of his working life at sea, and used his experiences for the basis of much of his writing. His works are now largely forgotten, with the exception of his popular children’s book, ‘The Children of the New Forest’.
Lear Edward
The gravestone of Edward Lear (1812 – 1888) in an Italian cemetery reads simply ‘Landscape Painter In Many Lands’, and this echoed Lear’s own view of his principal achievement. Posterity remembers him for inspired lunacy of his nonsense poetry, collected in ‘A Book of Nonsense’.
Lang Andrew
Andrew Lang (1844 – 1912) was one of the most important collectors of folk and fairy tales, which he edited into twenty volumes, from ‘The Blue Book’ onwards. Some of his best work is available from Wordsworth, in ‘Tales from the Arabian Nights’, ‘Tales of Troy and Greece’, and ‘Tales from King Arthur’.
Lamb Charles and Mary
Charles Lamb (1775 – 1834) was an accomplished writer and essayist, best remembered for ‘Tales from Shakespeare’, a rewriting of the plays which made them more accessible for children. He wrote them with his sister, Mary (1764 – 1834), he, the tragedies, she, the comedies.
Kingsley Charles
Charles Kingsley (1819 – 1875) was a Victorian clergyman and writer, whose book ‘The Water Babies’ not only became a classic children’s story, but also a force for social change in the form of improved working conditions for boy chimney-sweeps.
Jacobs Joseph
Joseph Jacobs (1854-1916) was an Australian-born collector of folklore, represented here by a collection of his stories, ‘Irish Fairy Tales’.
Hughes Thomas
Thomas Hughes (1822 – 1896) attended Rugby School. The school and its headmaster, Dr Thomas Arnold, served as his inspiration for ‘Tom Brown’s School Days’, an adventure based on life in a public school.