Milly-Molly-Mandy

Milly-Molly-Mandy refers to a series of children's books written and illustrated by Joyce Lankester Brisley, as well as to the main character of those books. Each book has a number of short stories about the little girl in the pink-and-white striped dress.^[1]

Milly-Molly-Mandy's real name is Millicent Margaret Amanda, but she received the nickname because her full name was considered too long. Her adventures are the everyday events of village life, running errands, going to school, making presents, fishing, picnicking, and so on. She lives in "the nice white cottage with the thatched roof" on the edge of a small village. Her parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle also live in the cottage. Her friends are Billy Blunt and Little-Friend-Susan.

These simple tales were originally published in the Christian Science Monitor. While acknowledging that the stories have been sometimes represented as twee and sentimental, Lucy Mangan, writing in The Guardian, describes them as delightful and comforting: "each story is a miniature masterpiece, as clear, warm and precise as the illustrations by the author that accompanied them".^[2]

Milly-Molly-Mandy books include:

• Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories (1928)
• More of Milly-Molly-Mandy (1929)
• Further Doings of Milly-Molly-Mandy (1932)
• Milly-Molly-Mandy Again (1948)
• Milly-Molly-Mandy & Co (1955)
• Milly-Molly-Mandy and Billy Blunt (1967)
• The Adventures of Milly-Molly-Mandy (omnibus, 1992)
• The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook (selection, 2001)

"Milly-Molly-Mandy" was also the title of a minor 1973 UK hit single by Glyn Poole, promoted on the TV series Junior Showtime.

References

1. ^ Joyce Lankester Brisley at Fantastic Fiction
2. ^ Lucy Mangan in The Guardian, 1 November 2008