Sheila Chapman

Sheila Chapman is something of a mystery figure. She started writing very young, and her first book, A Pony and His Partner, was published at the age of 16.

The Mystery Pony, Burke 1960

reprinted in 1964 in pb as Junior Pacemaker
reprinted in 1965 by Burke as a hardback (Pony Adventure) togther with The Mystery Pony and Hilda Boden’s Joanna’s Special Pony.

A Pony and His Partner
Burke 1959, illustrated by Geoffrey Whittam

reprinted in 1964 in pb as a Junior Pacemaker by Burke

She wrote three further books as Sheila Chapman, one of which, The Mystery Pony, is a sequel to A Pony and His Partner. As far as I know, she wrote four books in all, all pony books and published between 1959 and 1961. Sheila Chapman is a very elusive subject: all the biographical information I have been able to find on her comes from the dustjackets of her books.

She started writing A Pony and his Partner at the age of 13; tore it up and then re-wrote it. It was published some years later, but was actually ready for publication when she was only 15. It, like her other novels, was published by Burke. Sheila Chapman lived in Somerton in Somerset, was a member of the Blackmore Vale Pony Club, and had her first pony (shared with her older sister) at the age of 7. She was obviously something of a live wire: besides being a published author while she was still at school, she also hunted, competed, and taught at the junior Pony Club, and trained as a teacher.

It may well be that Sheila Chapman went on to write further books under another name, but if so I’m not aware of what it was. None of the four books I know about have been in print for over 40 years so are not particularly easy to find. The paperbacks do turn up, but Burke’s paperback series are not robust, and survivors tend to be in poor condition. The hardbacks are hard to find but not impossible, and the trilogy is usually fairly easy to find. The one exception to this (and you are now all going to tell me you have three copies) is Ride for Freedom. Many thanks to John Rees for sending every scrap of information he could find on this book, for which I’m very grateful, as I’ve never actually seen this title! Thanks to John too for the scan of the pb Mystery Pony.

All the stories were republished in German, and are easy to find, so if you can read German that might be a way of filling in any gaps in your collection!