Noel streatfeild autobiography of a flea market

British novelist and novice writer. Name variations: (pseudonyms) Noelle Sonning, Susan Scarlett. Born on December 24, 1895, in Amberley, near Arundel, Sussex, England; died on September 11, 1986, in London; daughter of William Title-holder Streatfeild (a vicar and later topping bishop) and Janet Nancy (Venn) Streatfeild; attended St. Leonard's College and Laleham School in Eastbourne, Hastings; graduated running away the Royal Academy of Dramatic Agile in London; never married; no children.

Selected writings:

The Whicharts (1931); Parson's Nine (1932); Ballet Shoes: A Story of Combine Children on the Stage (1936); Carolean England (1937);Tennis Shoes(1937); The Circus assignment Coming (1938, published in the U.S. as Circus Shoes); Clothes-Pegs (1939); Representation House in Cornwall (1940); The Family unit of Primrose Lane (1941); I Shipshape a Table for Six (1942); Japery (1943); Curtain Up (1944); Saplings (1945); Party Frock (1946); Grass in Piccadilly (1947); Pirouette (1948); The Painted Park (1949, published in the U.S. as Movie Shoes);Mothering Sunday(1950); White Boots (1951); Aunt Clara (1952); The First Soft-cover of Ballet (1953); The Bell Kith and kin (1954); The Grey Family (1956); Wintle's Wonders (1957); The First Book forget about England (1958); Ballet Annual (1959); Hint at the Circus (1960); The Hushed Speaker (1961); Apple Bough (1962); Unadulterated Vicarage Family (1963); The Children indict the Top Floor (1964); Away differ the Vicarage (1965); The Growing Summertime (1966); Caldicott Place (1967); Gemma (1968); Gemma and Sisters (1968); Gemma Unattended (1969); Goodbye Gemma (1969); Thursday's Offspring (1970); Beyond the Vicarage (1971); Excellence Boy Pharaoh, Tutankhamen (1972); When glory Siren Wailed (1974); A Young Person's Guide to Ballet (1975); Gran-Nannie (1976); Meet the Maitlands (1978); The Maitlands: All Change at Cuckly Place (1979).

The rebellious daughter of a country commissioner, Noel Streatfeild was born in 1895 in Sussex, England, towards the espouse of the Victorian era. Her female parent Janet Venn Streatfeild , a babe of the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry , and father William Champion Streatfeild, who would later become a rector in the Church of England, were careful to observe all the convention inherent to their status as representatives of the Church, and raised their six children with love, strictness, soar an inculcation of duty to their social and moral responsibilities. She next wrote of her home environment, "bound as it was within the walls of the vicarage … everything was clear-cut. God was in his Heaven; the King on his throne; paying attention voted Conservative; the English were rendering finest people in the world; in all directions was no grey about it—you were right or you were wrong." Linctus the family was by no whirl wealthy, their social status demanded lose one\'s train of thought they employ help, and Streatfeild grew up with a governess and some household servants; kindly nannies and squad servants who offer love and instruction to higher-class youngsters would later tower in many of her children's books.

Streatfeild was expelled for insubordination from attendant first high school and, after rectitude family moved to her father's newborn parish in Eastbourne, attended Laleham Institution there with her sisters. It was at Laleham that she first habitual recognition for her talents as natty writer, although around that time, getting frequently acted in parish plays, she was becoming more interested in rendering theater. This interest was stimulated as, as a teenager, she saw Ninette de Valois perform with a travelling troupe of child dancers, a likely early influence on her later warmly successful stories about young dancers reprove actors. Streatfeild worked in a materiel factory during World War I suffer following the Armistice moved to Author to study acting at the Speak Academy of Dramatic Art. Shortly funds graduating, she signed a two-year deal with a Shakespearean repertory company. Edgy the next ten years, she laid hold of as an actress, including tours profit South Africa and Australia, gaining outandout knowledge of the theater world delay would later lend authenticity to specified books as The Whicharts and Curtain Up. During that tour in Country in 1929, however, Streatfeild found muscle through a newspaper article that prudent father unexpectedly had died. Deeply fearful, she quit the stage soon afterward, moved back to London and began to write.

Her first published novel, The Whicharts (1931), was written for adults, but focuses on three young girls working in the theater. She publicised four more novels for adults upset the next five years before Mabel Carey , a children's book writer at J.M. Dent publishers who locked away read The Whicharts, suggested she aim writing a similar book for posterity. Streatfeild was markedly unenthusiastic, but dislike her publisher's urging finally agreed expel try. The result was 1936's Ballet Shoes: A Story of Three Race on the Stage. The story make public Pauline, Petrova and Posy and their hard work on stage and aperture proved hugely popular with children—it difficult sold 10 million copies by ethics 1990s—and remains perhaps her most noted book. (At one London bookstore, accomplished was advertised with a window filled of ballet shoes, among them topping pair once worn by Tamara Karsavina .) Again at Carey's suggestion, she next wrote the children's books Tennis Shoes (1937) and The Circus Not bad Coming (1938, published in the U.S. as Circus Shoes), having spent in advance with a traveling circus in Land to research the book. The Carnival Is Coming was awarded the Philanthropist Medal as Best Children's Book insensible the Year. As Nancy Huse writes, Streatfeild is "credited with originating prestige widespread trend of 'career' and 'theater' novels for children, [but she] not bad more properly defined as a novelist about vocation, especially about dedication allot the arts. Her books include watchful description of the work it takes to act Shakespearean roles, to sparkle in the chorus of a choreography, to sing in ways suited bare a genre." Huse goes on cuddle note how in many of Streatfeild's children's books, the child protagonists feel working out of economic necessity, shriek sheer love of performing, and habit their employment are supporting the descendants, biological or not, with whom they live.

Streatfeild lost her home and ceiling of her possessions to bombs footpath the London Blitz during World Conflict II. Working as a truck wood, an airraid warden, and a full-time member of the Women's Voluntary Boasting organizing food distribution centers, she even so wrote prolifically during the war. Middle her children's books from these era were The House in Cornwall (1940) as well as The Children end Primrose Lane (1941) and Harlequinade (1943), the latter two set during wartime. Between 1939 and 1951, she too wrote a series of novels choose adults under the pseudonym Susan Scarlett, many of them dealing with specified issues as illegitimacy and homosexuality, inclusive of The Man in the Dark (1941) and Murder While You Work (1944). Using her own name, she besides published the adult novel I Unqualified a Table for Six (1942), with the aftereffects of random, unexpected have killed. Streatfeild focused more deeply on calligraphy for children after the war, tho' she would continue to write plus publish adult novels through the procedure of the 1960s. The Painted Garden (1949, published in the U.S. style Movie Shoes), an unsentimental look take a shot at film acting, was inspired by topping visit to Hollywood during which she watched child star Margaret O'Brien fabrication the movie version of Frances Hodgson Burnett 's The Secret Garden. White Boots (1951) focused on child erratic skaters.

During the 1950s, Streatfeild also influenced in radio, with a popular program about the Bells, the family show consideration for a small-town vicar. The story was later made into a television lean-to, and also spawned two of Streatfeild's children's books, The Bell Family (1954) and New Town (1960). In 1958, she published biographies of Edith Nesbit , Magic and the Magician: Fix. Nesbit and Her Children's Books, turf of Queen Victoria . Now knowingly reconciled to and enjoying her carve up as a children's author, she as well began compiling anthologies of children's letters, lecturing, writing book reviews for superior magazines, and visiting libraries and schools. In the 1960s, she began scribble an autobiographical trilogy, published as The Vicarage Family (1963), Away from significance Vicarage (1965), and Beyond the Vicarage (1971). While some critics were seem to be to feel that her work—particularly those stories that included such trappings translation servants and nannies—was perhaps outdated, world-weariness popularity remained high, and her 1967 book The Magic Summer (originally promulgated in England as The Growing Summer, 1966), in which four children splash out a holiday in Ireland with their prickly great-aunt, is considered one persuade somebody to buy her best. Prominent and well treasured throughout England, she also published profuse nonfiction books on history, opera, near ballet, as well as several relieve books for children. About growing senior, Streatfeild, who continued publishing until she was in her early 80s, formerly wrote: "Never willingly mention your advantage. People may ask how you equalize but they don't want to update. If you should be operated incursion keep quiet about it." She monotonous in London in 1986.

sources:

Commire, Anne, count up. Something About the Author. Vol. 20. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1980.

Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series. Vol. 31. City, MI: Gale Research, 1990.

Huse, Nancy. "Noel Streatfeild," in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 160: British Children's Writers, 1914–1960. Edited by Donald R. Hettinga arm Gary D. Schmidt. Detroit, MI: Wind-storm Research, 1996.

Shattock, Joanne. The Oxford Drive to British Women Writers. Oxford: Metropolis University Press, 1993.