O’Neill, Judith

About the author

Judith O’Neill (1930–2006) was born in Melbourne, Australia. One side of her family were convicts transported to Van Diemen’s Land – the other emigrants from the Isle of Skye. She studied at the University of Melbourne, and the Institute of Education in London. She moved between England and Australia until she married in 1954. When her husband was appointed Professor of New Testament at Cambridge University, the family moved permanently to England, where Judith taught, and produced a range of critical poetry anthologies on English poets. She started writing fiction when she retired and moved to Edinburgh. Her books were all set in her native Australia; some of them reflecting her eagerness to explore the world as her ancestors experienced it . She wrote one book that involved horses, Stringybark Summer.

Finding the book
Easy to find in the UK, where it was published.

Links and sources
Judith O’Neill at Austlit
Obituary , Daily Telegraph, 11 May 2006


Bibliography (pony books only)


Stringybark Summer

Hamilton, London, 1985, 166 pp.
Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1985, pb
Methuen/Magnet Publishing Ltd, London, 1987, pb
Mammoth, London, 1990, pb

Sophie’s mother is expecting a baby, so Sophie’s sent off out of the way to stay with her cousins, who live at a mill. It doesn’t take long before Sophie begins to fit in to the way of life at the mill, particularly when she starts to work with the big mill horses.