Secret Gardens

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A01=Humphrey Carpenter
Author_Humphrey Carpenter
Category=DSY
Childhood
Criticism
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Faber Finds
Literature
Writers

Product details

  • ISBN 9780571249145
  • Weight: 329g
  • Dimensions: 135 x 216mm
  • Publication Date: 19 Feb 2009
  • Publisher: Faber & Faber
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
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Covering the period from the publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to Winnie-the-Pooh, Humphrey Carpenter examines the lives and writings of Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Grahame, George Macdonald, Louisa May Alcott, Frances Hodgson Burnett, A.A. Milne and others whose works make up the Golden Age of children's literature.

Both a collective biography and a work of criticism, Secret Gardens forces us to reconsider childhood classics in a new light.

'Secret Gardens permits us to see in a fresh light the interaction between cultural history and literature, and to realize that ... it wasn't mere misfits who withdrew into the writing of children's books, but rather the sort of misfits who reflected the prevailing dissatisfactions of the age.' New York Times Book Review

Humphrey Carpenter was born and educated in Oxford, and attended the Dragon School and Keble College. He was a well-known biographer and children's writer, and worked previously as a producer at the BBC. He wrote biographies of J. R. R. Tolkien, W. H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, Ezra Pound, C. S. Lewis and Dennis Potter. Among his many books for children were the best-selling Mr Majeika series. He also wrote several plays for the theatre and radio. A keen musician, he was a member of a 1930s-style jazz band, Vile Bodies, which was resident at the Ritz Hotel in London for a number of years. He died in 2005.

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