1. Eleanor Farjeon was an English author of children's stories and plays, poetry, biography, history and satire.
20 Facts About Eleanor Farjeon
1. 2.
Eleanor Farjeon won many literary awards and the Eleanor Farjeon Award for children's literature is presented annually in her memory by the Children's Book Circle, a society of publishers.
3.
Eleanor Farjeon was the sister of thriller writer Joseph Jefferson Farjeon.
4.
The daughter of Benjamin Farjeon and Maggie Farjeon, Eleanor came from a literary family; her two younger brothers, Joseph and Herbert Farjeon, were writers, while the eldest, Harry Farjeon, was a composer.
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Eleanor Farjeon was educated at home, spending much of her time in the attic, surrounded by books.
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Eleanor Farjeon's father encouraged her writing from the age of five.
7.
Eleanor Farjeon describes her family and her childhood in the autobiographical A Nursery in the Nineties.
8.
Eleanor Farjeon credited this game with giving her "the flow of ease which makes writing a delight".
9.
At eighteen, Eleanor Farjeon wrote the libretto for an operetta, Floretta, to music by her brother Harry, who later became a composer and teacher of music.
10.
Eleanor Farjeon collaborated with her youngest brother, Herbert, Shakespearian scholar and dramatic critic.
11.
Eleanor Farjeon later published much of their correspondence, and gave a definitive account of their relationship in Edward Thomas: The Last Four Years.
12.
Eleanor Farjeon never married, but had a thirty-year friendship with George Earle, an English teacher.
13.
In 1960, Eleanor Farjeon donated her family book collection to the Dunedin Public Library.
14.
Eleanor Farjeon's father had been a journalist in Dunedin in the 1860s before returning to England.
15.
Eleanor Farjeon is buried in the north churchyard extension of St John-at-Hampstead.
16.
Eleanor Farjeon's work is cited as an influence by the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki.
17.
Eleanor Farjeon's plays for children, such as those to be found in Granny Gray, were popular for school performances throughout the 1950s and '60s because they were well within the capabilities of young children to perform and of teachers to direct.
18.
Eleanor Farjeon's books include Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard and its sequel, Martin Pippin in the Daisy Field.
19.
Eleanor Farjeon won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association for that work, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject.
20.
Eleanor Farjeon received the first international Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1956.