Although historical and current children’s literature are both widely covered critically and bibliographically, the decades between 1900 and 1950 are not. Increasing interest is being shown in this period, not just because some very interesting and fine authors appeared during it, but also because works are attracting more and more attention from an antiquarian and book collecting point of view. This work covers some 200 writers and is intended for a mixed readership of librarians, educationists, book‐dealers and people interested in book design and illustration. It concentrates on British and American writers, from Harold Avery to May Wynne, picking up genres like boys’ adventure, girls’ school stories, fantasy and animal stories, and arranging them all by decade. Numerous writers appear across the decades (like Richmal Crompton, L.T. Meade, Enid Blyton), so the decade where a writer is most productive is where the major entry is placed. At the start there is a complete list of authors, and a list of authors starts each decade entry. A typical entry (say, for P.L.Travers, of Mary Poppins fame) contains name and dates, a 200‐or‐so word discussion of the author and the works, and a listing of major titles with illustrator, publisher, and date (first editions only). Discussion is to the point, dispassionate, unpatronising(one could have been with W.E. Johns of Biggles, Frank Richards of Billy Bunter,H.E. Todd of Bobby Brewster), and informative.
John Cooper has published studies of detective fiction and Jonathan Cooper (John’s eldest son) is a teacher and expert on children’s books, and together they have produced a useful guide to a wide field. Sampling across the period, we find Ardizzone and the Pullein‐Thompsons, Coolidge and Oxenham, de Brunhoff and T.H. White, Gordon Stables and Amy Le Feuvre, Masefield and Jansson. Although not the only source here (see also Twentieth‐Century Children’s Writers from the St James Press, 1996, as well as Quayle and Craig/Cadogan, let alone studies of individual writers like Henty and Crompton), this work is timely, useful, well‐illustrated, a good handbook for a serious student and collector in the field (but of less interest to a children’s/school librarian working mainly with “the now”).
