Antonia Forest

The Thursday Kidnapping

The Thursday Kidnapping tells of a day in the life of four intelligent, articulated and self-reliant children who find that, through the momentary carelessness of one of them, the baby in their charge has been stolen. There is a panic, a search, hopes are raised and disappointed … What is unusual for a book originally published in 1963 is the author’s respect for humanity. She refuses to invent more criminality than can be found in the lonely, envious child of stupid and careless parents, and she expects sensitivity and understanding in her readers. Click here to see some pages from The Thursday Kidnapping. The Thursday Kidnapping was originally written for a competition, and although it did not win, it has proved very popular over the years. The plot set in Hampstead, London, and Joy Wotton has written an informative, illustrated, introduction on walking through the book. In addition, Sue Sims, Antonia Forest’s Literary Executor, has written a brand new introductory article on the author. GGBP published The Thursday Kidnapping in March 2009. The Thursday Kidnapping went out of print in January 2012.

The Marlows and Their Maker

Sue Sims’s Introduction to The Marlows and Their Maker ends: ‘Perhaps the greatest compliment I can pay this book is that, reading it before publication, I kept thinking: “Oh—why didn’t I think of that?” Insight, wit and love—they make for a fascinating volume.’ Anne Heazlewood conducted a lengthy correspondence with Antonia Forest in which they discussed not only the latter’s books but also many other topics. Anne wrote and subsequently sent to the author a study of her Marlow books. The Marlows and their Maker is a completely revised and expanded edition of that original work. Anne presents a study of the books—the plots, the characters, the real and fictional geography—putting them into the context of the different times at which they were created, and incorporates all Antonia Forest’s comments on and criticisms of the original work. The Marlows and Their Maker is highly illustrated with six specially created maps and charts, over 30 illustrations, one taken by Antonia Forest herself and most of the others commissioned for the book; six pages worth of the illustrations are in colour, including a spread showing the covers of the various editions of all Antonia Forest’s books. In addition there is a transcript of one of Antonia Forest’s letters to the author, plus a facsimile of the first page. There are also detailed ‘cast lists’. GGBP published The Marlows and Their Maker in August 2007. The Marlows and Their Maker went out of print in January 2011.

Celebrating Antonia Forest 

Did you know that if you own Run Away Home, you do not have the original text as Antonia Forest intended it? Celebrating Antonia Forest includes 50 pages of never-before-published text for Run Away Home, taken from Antonia Forest’s original typescript, together with Hilary Clare’s discussion of the various revisions which Antonia Forest made as she wrote and rewrote her last book. None of the discarded material is available anywhere else.Click here to see a few sample pages from Celebrating Antonia Forest. In addition, Celebrating Antonia Forest includes the fully illustrated conference proceedings from the Antonia Forest Conference held a few years ago. The papers were given by: Barry Carter, who spoke on the place of the Royal Navy in the Marlow series under the title The Navy’s Here!; Hilary Clare, discussing the Marlow family in Marlows Past, Present and Future; Susan Hall, on AF’s use of other authors in Nicola as Reader: the Uses of Fiction within the Marlows’ World; Virginia Preston, taking another view of the role of the Royal Navy in “That long line of happy ships”: Nicola, the Navy and Heroism in the Works of Antonia Forest; Diane Purkiss, historian, on Shakespeare: did Antonia Forest get it Right?; Sue Sims, herself a local resident and also Antonia Forest’s literary executor, on Antonia Forest and Bournemouth, which includes many previously unpublished photographs of the author; Victor Watson, the author and editor of several studies of books for children, including The Cambridge Guide to Children’s Books in English, on Antonia Forest, Classic Novelist; Sheena Wilkinson, the author of a recent study of girls’ fictional school and college friendships, on Friendship in the Novels of Antonia Forest. There is also an Antonia Forest Quiz – with answers! GGBP published Celebrating Antonia Forest in September 2008. Celebrating Antonia Forest went out of print in January 2010.