Bodley Head monographs
Description
Kathleen Mary Lines (24 September 1902 – 24 December 1988) was a book critic, editor, anthologist and librarian from Canada. An expert on children's literature, she wrote, compiled, and edited Four to Fourteen (1950) for the National Book League. She also wrote the introduction to the second edition of F. J. Harvey Darton's Children's Books in England (1958) and edited a series of illustrated fairy tale picture books. Artists for the picture books included Edward Ardizzone for the Bodley Head. Lines was also the general editor of the Bodley Head Monographs and edited Lavender's Blue (1954), a selection of classic nursery rhymes illustrated by Harold Jones.
How the series evolves
Books in this Series
Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) remains one of the most popular British authors of all time. In this controversial new biography he is subjected to the psychological scrutiny for which Martin Seymour-Smith is celebrated, and the personality that emerges is quite different from the traditional image of the Laureate of the Empire portrayed by past critics. Born in Bombay, Kipling spent much of his childhood with foster parents in Southsea, and went to school in Westward Ho! before returning to India as a journalist. In 1889 he came back to England, via the Far East and the USA, and cemented the success he had enjoyed through his writing in India. In 1892 he married, and settled in Vermont for four years. It was here that he wrote his most famous work, The Jungle Book. After further travels and a spell at Rottingdean, Kipling moved to Bateman's in Sussex, where he lived for the rest of his life. In 1907 he became the first British author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Martin Seymour-Smith explores beyond this exterior of conventional respectability and discovers territory uncharted by previous biographers -- all of whom have preserved the myth. He examines Kipling's life and work with rigor and insight, and unfolds the extraordinary and deeply moving story of this much-loved and much-criticized author who has come to occupy his own special place in the canon of English literature. Kipling can never be the same again. - Jacket flap.
Louisa M. Alcott and the American family story
A biography of the author whose Little Women and other popular books were based on the experiences of her family.