Elizabeth Goudge
Elizabeth Goudge | |
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Born | Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge 24 April 1900 Wells, England |
Died | 1 April 1984 Rotherfield Peppard, Oxfordshire | (aged 83)
Pen name | Elizabeth Goudge |
Occupation | Writer |
Nationality | British |
Period | 1934–1978 |
Genre | Children's literature, romance |
Notable works |
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Notable awards | Carnegie Medal 1945 |
Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge
Biography
Personal life
Goudge was born on 24 April 1900 in Tower House in The Liberty of the cathedral city of
After Goudge's father's death in 1939, she and her mother moved to a bungalow in Marldon, Devon. They had planned a holiday there, but the outbreak of the Second World War led them to remain. A local contractor built them a bungalow in Westerland Lane, now Providence Cottage, where they lived for 12 years. Goudge set several of her books in Marldon: Smoky House (1940), The Castle on the Hill (1941), Green Dolphin Country (1944), The Little White Horse (1946) and Gentian Hill (1949).[6] After her mother died on 4 May 1951, she moved to Oxfordshire for the last 30 years of her life, in a cottage on Peppard Common outside Henley-on-Thames, where a blue plaque was unveiled in 2008.[7]
Elizabeth Goudge died on 1 April 1984.[8]
Writing career
Goudge's first book, The Fairies' Baby and Other Stories (1919), failed to sell and several years passed before she wrote her first novel,
Goudge was a founding member of the Romantic Novelists' Association in 1960 and later its vice-president.[11] Retailing her point of view:
As this world becomes increasingly ugly, callous and materialistic it needs to be reminded that the old fairy stories are rooted in truth, that imagination is of value, that happy endings do, in fact, occur, and that the blue spring mist that makes an ugly street look beautiful is just as real a thing as the street itself.
— Elizabeth Goudge[12]
Themes
Goudge's books are notably Christian in outlook, covering sacrifice, conversion, discipline, healing, and growth through suffering. Her novels, whether realistic, fantasy or historical, weave in legend and myth and reflect a spirituality and love of England that generate its appeal, whether she wrote for adults or for children.
Goudge said there were only three of her books that she loved: The Valley of Song, The Dean's Watch and The Child from the Sea, her final novel.[13] She doubted whether The Child from the Sea was a good book. "Nevertheless I love it because its theme is forgiveness, the grace that seems to me divine above all others, and the most desperate need of all us tormented and tormenting human beings, and also because I seemed to give to it all I have to give; very little, heaven knows. And so I know I can never write another novel, for I do not think there is anything else to say.[14]
Plagiarism of Goudge's work
This section relies largely or entirely upon a single source.(December 2020) ) |
Early in 1993, Cranes' Morning by
A month later, a reader from Ontario informed Hodder and Stoughton, publisher of Goudge's book The Rosemary Tree in 1956, that it had been "taken over without any acknowledgment whatsoever". Soon another reader informed a newspaper reporter and there was a scandal.[2]
When The Rosemary Tree was first published in 1956,
Kafka later remarked about his Post review: "There's a phrase 'aesthetic affirmative action.' If something comes from exotic parts, it's read very differently than if it's domestically grown.... Maybe Elizabeth Goudge is a writer who hasn't gotten her due."[2]
Several months later, Indrani Aikath-Gyaltsen was dead, perhaps from suicide, but there were requests for investigation.[2]
Influence
J. K. Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter, has recalled that The Little White Horse was her favourite book as a child. She has also identified it as one of very few with "direct influence on the Harry Potter books. The author always included details of what her characters were eating and I remember liking that. You may have noticed that I always list the food being eaten at Hogwarts."[3][4]
Adaptations
Green Dolphin Country (1944) was
The television mini-series Moonacre and the 2009 film The Secret of Moonacre were based on The Little White Horse.
Awards and honours
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Annual Novel Award, 1944, Green Dolphin Country.[15]
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, 1945.
- Carnegie Medal, 1946, The Little White Horse.[1]
Bibliography
The Torminster Saga
The Eliots of Damerosehay Saga
Single novels
Children's books
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Collections
Nonfiction
Anthologies containing stories by Elizabeth Goudge
Anthologies edited by Elizabeth Goudge
Short stories
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See also
References
- ^ a b c
(Carnegie Winner 1946). Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. CILIP. Retrieved 15 August 2012.
- ^ a b c d e f g Molly Moore, "Plagiarism and mystery" Archived 12 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Washington Post Foreign Service, 27 April 1994. Retrieved 11 November 2012.
- ^ ISBN 978-0439314558. p. 24.
- ^ a b "Harry and me". The Scotsman. 9 November 2002. Archived from the original on 29 January 2022. Retrieved 8 February 2022.
- ISBN 0-912289-45-7
- ^ "Elizabeth Goudge, her time in Marldon". Marldon Local History Group: Life in a Devon Parish. Archived from the original on 5 December 2014. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
- ^ "Elizabeth GOUDGE (1900–1984)". Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Scheme.
- ^ Obituaries: The Times, 3 April 1984; The New York Times 27 April 1984.
- ISBN 978-0-698-10605-5.
- ^ John Attenborough, "Goudge, Elizabeth de Beauchamp (1900–1984)", rev. Victoria Millar, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. Online edition. Retrieved 17 September 2009.
- ^ "Our story" Archived 22 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Romantic Novelists' Association. Retrieved 11 November 2012.
- ^ Romantic Novelists' Association's Story, archived from the original on 22 October 2012, retrieved 11 November 2012
- ^ Elizabeth Goudge, The Joy of the Snow, Coronet, Sevenoaks, 1977, pp. 256–259.
- ^ Elizabeth Goudge, The Joy of the Snow, p. 259.
- ^ The New York Times, 10 September 1944.
- ^ https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.261054/page/n1/mode/2up online access
- ^ https://archive.org/details/gentianhill00goud online access
- ^ https://archive.org/details/deanswatch00goud online access
- ^ https://archive.org/details/elizabethgoudge0000unse online access
External links
- Elizabeth Goudge at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Elizabeth Goudge at Library of Congress, with 100 library catalogue records