Barbara Willard

Barbara Willard, a British historical/children's author, was born in Brighton, Sussex in 1909, daughter of a Shakespearean actor. Her literary career spawned a great number of books for adults before she turned to children's literature. In 1967, the same year her earlier "Richleighs of Tantamount" debuted in the United States, she published "A Grove of Green Holly", from which spun off her most famous series of books, "Mantlemass". One of the books in this series, "The Iron Lily", won Willard the Guardian Award for children's fiction in 1974.

Other books from Willard included "Storm from the West" (1964), "Charity at Home" (1966), "Hetty" (1963) and "Three and One to Carry" (1965). (Years shown are those for the North American first editions of these books.)

Very little about the author was written during her lifetime, because of her private nature. She died in her native land in 1994.

References

* [http://www.collectingbooksandmagazines.com/history.html#Willard Biography on Barbara Willard] by Belinda Copson, "Folly Magazine" No. 27 (1999).