Lenona
2020-12-12 20:52:26 UTC
One novel she wrote for adults was Jane Austen in Australia. In addition to retellings of fairy tales from Australia, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Mexico, India, Iran and Europe, she wrote an aboriginal Pitjantjatjara version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. She also wrote original stories.
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2020/oct/12/barbara-ker-wilson-obituary
By Julia Eccleshare
First paragraphs:
The writer and children’s publisher Barbara Ker Wilson, who has died aged 90, was prolific as an editor of collections of folk tales and myths, and as the author of novels that, in her stories for teenagers, often included a background reflecting on the historical position of women.
She could also claim to have discovered Paddington Bear. Wilson’s work as an editor at Collins publishers in the 1950s included reading the manuscripts submitted by agents and it was there that she had the moment in her career that was significant enough to be documented in the company archive: “Barbara Ker Wilson received a manuscript submission about a talking bear, which she opened with ‘initial suspicion’”– as the publisher had received many other proposals featuring humanised animals that “are invariably either whimsy-whamsy, written down, or filled with adult innuendoes”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Ker_Wilson
https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.books.childrens/c/Omk2XlL7HdE/m/1y8J-TTwAgAJ
(birthday post from 2019 - it includes book covers, reviews, a video read-aloud of the fairy tale Can You Keep a Secret, and long booklist)
Excerpts:
BKW: "My first 'successful' work, written when I was eight, was a play
based on the coronation of King George VI; it was performed at my
primary school in England. Throughout my childhood I wrote poetry,
short stories and unfinished 'novels'."
From Contemporary Authors:
"Barbara Ker Wilson has blended a career as an editor and a writer
both in her native England and in her adopted country of Australia.
Writing mainly for a juvenile audience, she has produced picture
books, young adult novels, retellings of myths and folk tales from
around the world, and a miscellany of story collections. Writing for
adults, she has produced two popular novels, also read by teens: the
speculative history Jane Austen in Australia, published in the United
States as Antipodes Jane, and the historical romance The Quade
Inheritance. As an editor, she has worked for the publishers Bodley
Head and William Collins in England, as well as for Angus & Robertson,
Hodder & Stoughton, Reader's Digest, and the University of Queensland
Press in Australia; she has served as children's editor at most of
these houses."
Lenona.
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2020/oct/12/barbara-ker-wilson-obituary
By Julia Eccleshare
First paragraphs:
The writer and children’s publisher Barbara Ker Wilson, who has died aged 90, was prolific as an editor of collections of folk tales and myths, and as the author of novels that, in her stories for teenagers, often included a background reflecting on the historical position of women.
She could also claim to have discovered Paddington Bear. Wilson’s work as an editor at Collins publishers in the 1950s included reading the manuscripts submitted by agents and it was there that she had the moment in her career that was significant enough to be documented in the company archive: “Barbara Ker Wilson received a manuscript submission about a talking bear, which she opened with ‘initial suspicion’”– as the publisher had received many other proposals featuring humanised animals that “are invariably either whimsy-whamsy, written down, or filled with adult innuendoes”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Ker_Wilson
https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.books.childrens/c/Omk2XlL7HdE/m/1y8J-TTwAgAJ
(birthday post from 2019 - it includes book covers, reviews, a video read-aloud of the fairy tale Can You Keep a Secret, and long booklist)
Excerpts:
BKW: "My first 'successful' work, written when I was eight, was a play
based on the coronation of King George VI; it was performed at my
primary school in England. Throughout my childhood I wrote poetry,
short stories and unfinished 'novels'."
From Contemporary Authors:
"Barbara Ker Wilson has blended a career as an editor and a writer
both in her native England and in her adopted country of Australia.
Writing mainly for a juvenile audience, she has produced picture
books, young adult novels, retellings of myths and folk tales from
around the world, and a miscellany of story collections. Writing for
adults, she has produced two popular novels, also read by teens: the
speculative history Jane Austen in Australia, published in the United
States as Antipodes Jane, and the historical romance The Quade
Inheritance. As an editor, she has worked for the publishers Bodley
Head and William Collins in England, as well as for Angus & Robertson,
Hodder & Stoughton, Reader's Digest, and the University of Queensland
Press in Australia; she has served as children's editor at most of
these houses."
Lenona.