A NURSERY IN THE NINETIES - ELEANOR FARJEON BIO

A NURSERY IN THE NINETIES

 by ELEANOR FARJEON 

Eleanor Farjeon is probably best known for her powerfully imaginative children’s books, so it is not surprising to discover that her own childhood, recalled here in quite astonishing detail, was a happy and creative one.

 

Nellie was born in 1881, the daughter of the irrepressible Ben Farjeon,a writer of popular novels, and the sweet natured Margaret Jefferson, of the famous American acting family. Their own fascinating stories, which take us as far afield as the New Zealand bush and a Louisiana plantation, occupy almost half the book. Being a girl, Nellie was never sent to school, and she was miserably self-conscious at parties or in the company of strangers. The nursery, therefore, was the only world she knew for more than sixteen years. It was here that she read, wrote stories, and with her three brothers evolved the rituals and games that dominated their lives.

 

Her imagination flourished in this hothouse atmosphere to such an extent that her fantasy life became more important and more exiting to her than the real world of Victorian London outside the nursery. She later admitted that this was unhealthy and seriously delayed her maturity, but readers of A Nursery in the Nineties can only be grateful for the passionate involvement in the nursery that inspired one of the most striking accounts of childhood ever written.

 

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