Dora at Follyfoot

About Monica Dickens

Monica Dickens was a great granddaughter of Charles Dickens and born in 1915 She was one of the two or three best-selling woman's novelists of her generation. She was educated at St Paul's Girls' School but was expelled after throwing her school uniform over Hammersmith Bridge. She joined a drama school before being presented at Court in 1935. During the war she worked as a nurse and in a Spitfire factory and began writing novels. Praise came with every book: JB Priestley wrote 'Monica Dickens gets better and better' AS Byatt argued that she was much underestimated. John Betjeman declared that she was a novelist 'who has all the airs and graces a reader could wish for'. Monica Dickens felt the challenge to write for children and began in the 1970s. Her Follyfoot books were made into one of the most successful TV series for children of the 1970s and remain a favourite of horse-lovers everywhere. Monica Dickens loved riding and she kept horses. She died in 1985