The blog.
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Railway Horses 1 – Railway Women and Horses
Much of the history of railways is the history of men, but from the outset, women worked on the railways. As with so many other jobs, it was wartime when women came into their own. At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, 25,000 women were employed on the railways. By 1944, they…
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How (not) to run a Win a Pony competition
Remember those Win a Pony competitions that got everyone so excited? When I was editor of PONY, we thought it would be a great idea to revive it…
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Marjorie Mary Oliver and Eva Ducat
Marjorie Mary Oliver (1899–1976) and Eva Ducat (1878–1975) wrote some of the earliest pony books, with stories that focused on children and their adventures rather than telling the story from the pony’s point of view. The three books they wrote together – The Ponies of Bunts (1933), Sea Ponies (1935) and Ponies and Caravans (1941)…
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Covid-19: What we’re doing
As we all know, we’re living in very uncertain times. I have to make plans so that the business will survive, and so Jane Badger Books can continue in its mission to bring you the best classic pony books. I am going to make a few changes to how I do things and what I…
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Jill: the Reading Order Question
If you have a set of the paperback Jill books, and you’ve been busy replacing them with the hardback versions, you might have noticed that the reading order is different in the original hardbacks. The original publication and reading order of the Jill books is: The Knight paperbacks have altered this reading order. In the…
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Seven pony book myths
Lauren Brooke wrote the Heartland series Lauren Brooke is a pseudonym used by three authors: Linda Chapman (whose idea the series was) wrote most of the books in the series, with Gill Harvey and Elisabeth Grace contributing some titles. Linda wasn’t responsible for the Chestnut Hill books. Those were written by Catherine Hapka and Elisabeth…
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A few things you might not know about pony books
Black Beauty wasn’t the earliest pony book. The earliest one I’ve found is The Memoirs of Dick, the Little Poney, which was published in 1800. Patricia Leitch also wrote as Jane Eliot. Under that name she published four stories: Pony Club Camp, First Pony, Afraid to Ride and Jacky Jumps to the Top. The Pullein-Thompson…
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Victoria Eveleigh: ponies, books and Lundy
Midnight on Lundy was inspired by several tales of a legendary Lundy pony stallion called Midnight. Lundy is a very special island for all sorts of reasons: marine life, birds, geology, history, mythology, scenery, plants and a quality which can’t be put into words. My husband Chris and I spent our honeymoon there, and we have returned…
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Heroines on Horseback: what’s in it?
CHAPTER 1: ‘I Remember the Day I was Born’ How it all began: what was the earliest pony book written? And who was responsible for moving the genre away from trotting obediently in the footsteps of Black Beauty, with pony biography after pony biography? This chapter looks at authors like Eleanor Helme, Marjorie Mary Oliver, Golden…
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Heroines on Horseback: FAQ
What is the book about? It’s a look at the pony book from its earliest trot up until the 1970s. All the major authors are featured: Ruby Ferguson, the Pullein-Thompsons, K M Peyton, Monica Edwards and Monica Dickens, and many more. There’s a chapter looking at the development of the pony book in this century,…