Last month I wrote about the origins of five famous
children’s books. I was fascinated to
discover what inspired the writers to come up with such long-lived classics,
and I hope some of you were equally interested.
Anyway, as promised, today I want to go on with five more
famous children’s books and/or series.
The first of these is Mary
Poppins, by P L Travers, published in 1934.
PL Travers’ creation, unlike her screen portrayal, is a “fierce,
witchy heroine who imparts the deeper meaning of life to her charges.” Travers moved among mystics and magicians,
such as AE Russell (a writer on mysticism), WB Yeats, (as well as being a poet,
he was a devotee of Irish mythology and folklore) and GI Gurdjieff, (a Russian philosopher,
mystic and spiritual teacher) from whom she soaked up mythology and esoteric
lore. Mary, blown in on the east wind,
is more of a shaman than an Edwardian nanny, able to understand the language of
animals and stars and coming “from the Dark where all things have their
beginnings”. So forget Julie Andrews,
then! No wonder Travers was less than
enthusiastic about Disney’s interpretation of her heroine, even though it increased the popularity of the books and brought her many new readers!
Next comes The
Chronicles of Narnia, by C S Lewis, published in 1950.
In their middle-class Belfast home, Jack Lewis and his elder
brother Warnie enjoyed sibling camaraderie in their nursery, presided over by a
large wardrobe. Jack, obsessed by
Beatrix Potter’s books, created stories about anthropomorphic animals. In depressed middle age, Lewis, now an Oxford
don, finally found a way through the wardrobe doors to the Christian allegory
that lay beyond. (For a great deal more
about all the Narnia books, do read Katherine Langrish’s lovely book “From
Spare Oom to War Drobe.”)
And now for three more recent books:
The first of these is The
BFG, by Roald Dahl, published in 1982.
The BFG (Big Friendly Giant) is bald, nobbly, scary, extremely tall and has a way with
words. He carries off children, at least
Sophie, to an unknown land. He turns out
to be warm, funny and protective. The
BFG is Dahl himself, and Sophie his real-life granddaughter. The land of giants derives from the Norse
myths related by Dahl’s Norwegian mother.
Next, as if I could leave it out, is Harry Potter by J.K.Rowling.
The first book in the series of seven, Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone, was published in 1997, and
of course, as we all now know, it created a publishing phenomenon.
Rowling says “Harry strolled into my head fully-formed”,
though it’s possible to glimpse a touch of Sherlock Holmes about him. She also
says that Hermione is a caricature of herself at the age of eleven, and that
Ron Weasley resembles a best friend from sixth form. Her rich vocabulary has classical and
mediaeval sources: Dumbledore is Middle English for bumblebee, while Muggles is
jazzspeak for marijuana. And I still think JK Rowling's greatest achievement is that she single-handedly raised the profile of children's writers everywhere!
And finally, Artemis
Fowl by Eoin Colfer, published in 2001.
This is described by its author as “Die Hard with fairies”. The
story of the teenage criminal mastermind is also indebted to Hill Street Blues, and also to “all the
leprechauns the author, who is Irish, has grilled”.
And that’s the end of my ten books/series and their
origins. I hope you’ve found it as
interesting as I have.
visit my website: www.lynnebenton.com
1 comment:
Always fascinating to hear more about where stories come from and how they grew. Two very interesting posts. Thanks.
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