Gillian Avery

Gillian (Elise) Avery is a British children’s novelist and literary historian.

She was born in Reigate on September 30, 1926 and attended Dunottar School there. [Cadogan, 57.] . She worked first as a journalist, on the "Surrey Mirror", then for Chambers Encyclopedia and Oxford University Press. In 1952 she married the literary scholar A.O.J. Cockshut, with whom she moved to Manchester, returning to Oxford in 1966. [Cadogan, 57; Carpenter and Prichard, 38-9.]

She is the author of several studies of children’s history and early children’s literature; and this scholarly interest is reflected in her own books for children, which have a Victorian setting. The first, "The Warden’s Niece" (1957) is a witty adventure story, in which Maria runs away from her stultifying boarding school to live with her great-uncle, the head of an Oxford college. He decides to let her stay, impressed by her academic ambitions (she wants to become Professor of Greek); and she proves her abilities as a researcher by uncovering a piece of history from the civil war. Characters from the book reappear in "The Elephant War" (1960), which concerns the attempt to prevent the sale of London Zoo’s Jumbo to P.T. Barnum, and "The Italian Spring" (1962).

elected Publications

Children’s Books
*"The Warden’s Niece" 1957
*"Trespassers at Charlcote" 1958
*"James Without Thomas" 1959
*"The Elephant War" 1960
*"To Tame a Sister" 1961
*"The Greatest Gresham" 1962
*"The Peacock House" 1963
*"The Italian Spring" 1964
*"Call of the Valley" 1968
*"A Likely Lad" 1971 (winner of the Guardian Award, adapted for television in 1990 [IMDB page [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0398505/] ] )
*"Ellen's Birthday" 1971
*"Ellen and the Queen" 1972
*"Huck and her Time Machine" 1977
*"Mouldy’s Orphan" 1978

Non fiction
*"Mrs Ewing" (London: Bodley Head) 1961
*"Childhood’s Pattern, A study of the heroes and heroines of children’s fiction 1770-1950" (London: Hodder and Stoughton) 1975
*"The best type of girl, A history of girls' independent schools" (London) 1991

References

*Cadogan, Mary, 'Avery, Gillian (Elise)', "Twentieth Century Children's Writers", ed. D.L. Kirkpatrick (London: Macmillan, 1978), 57-9.
*Carpenter, Humphrey and Prichard, Mari, "The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature" (Oxford:OUP) 1984, 38-9.
*Townsend, John Rowe, "Written for Children" (Harmondsworth: Penguin) ed. 3 1987, 255-6

Notes