Month: August 2024
The 1950s gallop on
Were you to analyse how many pony books have been published over the last decades, and when, the 1950s come out on top. Geoffrey Trease said “In those days you could have sold Richard III if you had given it the right wrapper and called it A Pony for Richard.” This is unfortunately true. Out…
The Flood: Pony Book series in the 1950s
The 1950s saw a massive increase in the number of pony books published. The war was over; rationing was coming to an end. We had never had it so good, so Harold Macmillan said. The welfare state was becoming established, employment was high. The 1950s pony book reflected the spirit of optimism of the age:…
Pony books in the 1940s
After Joanna Cannan introduced her heroine Jean to the world in A Pony for Jean (1936), she opened the gate to a fresh wave of stories. Ann Stafford wrote a fine holiday adventure in Five Proud Riders (1937), with young authors Katharine Hull and Pamela Whitlock contributing decent examples of ponies and holidays in their Oxus series in the late 1930s (The Far-Distant Oxus, 1937, Escape…
The pony book – how it all began
Animals, animals Animal books there were in plenty in the 1800s, all of them animals telling their own story. There were cats, dogs, the occasional pony, and donkeys, and then in 1877 came Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty. Black Beauty told the world what it was like to be a working horse in Victorian Britain. It was…