Category: Pony book history
The 1960s pony book
The 1960s was another productive decade for pony books; at least as far as the number published went. Carrying on Many authors active in the 1950s kept on writing: Mary Gervaise and Judith M Berrisford added to their series fiction. Neither the Georgia not Jackie series opened gates to new pastures. Georgia carried on having secure, family-based adventures; Jackie…
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…
Did men write pony books?
This post originally appeared on my old blog. I had completely forgotten I had written it until I was searching for information on Antonio Fachiri. I read it, and thought, oh, that’s not too bad, is it? So here it is again. Recently I’ve been thinking about male authors who write horse and pony books…
Short story collections (UK)
The books There are a lot of collections of short stories out there. They were convenient presents for those who had a pony-mad person to buy for, but who didn’t know what they liked. The books could be put together easily if you simply went for extracts, dressing the book up further by getting a…
Primrose Cumming: Silver Snaffles
Silver Snaffles is one of the most sought-after of pony books, whose story of ponies who can talk and teach you to ride has enchanted generations. Its theme of talking horses was not new: Black Beauty and Moorland Mousie spoke, but only to the reader or to other horses. John Thorburn’s Hildebrand (Country Life, 1930,…
What to call your pony book
Have you written a pony book? Writing a book is one thing, but thinking of a title for it is quite another. Do you tell the reader exactly what they’re going to get, or do you hint at it? Publishers in the past worked on the fair assumption that if you were looking for a…
Thelwell and the ponies who plot
Norman Thelwell was probably best known for his ponies. He was the illustrator of many pony-mad children’s childhoods: not the lovely dream of a matchless grey swishing round the show ring, festooned with rosettes, but the foul tempered pony determined not to be caught and entirely deaf to any suggestion that it be schooled. Much…