AIBU to wonder if nearly all children’s book authors had sad life’s

[ConfusedWife1234]

To name a few who had:

A.A. Milne (Winnieh the Pooh), J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit), C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia), J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter), Enid Blyton (Five go on...). That‘s four authors about whose biography I learned but and I discovered they really had sad lives. I do not know the biographies of most writers to be honest and wonder if some had happy lives.

The owner of one of the cafes was Rowling’s BIL so presumably she didn’t get hassled for not spending enough.

I really don’t think spending a couple of years as a single mother on benefits means that someone has had a sad life.

I really think if you look at the lives of anyone who lived before the NHS, routine vaccinations and the discovery of antibiotics you would struggle to find people who hadn’t lost someone close to them at a young age. Also even now a huge amount of people struggle with depression and deaths of loved ones. Even people who seem to live a charmed life.

If I were reading them for the first time, I would start with the first book, Autumn Term, and read them in sequence. Autumn Term is by far the easiest one to get hold of (some of them are rarer). They're all so good that my favourite constantly changes but Autumn Term is one of the best ones.

Enid Blyton was a vile woman. Hasn't one of her daughters testified to having a miserable childhood thanks to EB ?

Well, I think your perspective is blinkering you and you’re overlooking how many were affected by the two world wars and how normal being bereaved was.

Milne was estranged from his son in adulthood, sure, but did not have an unhappy existence otherwise — and he would have been very surprised to be thought of as a children’s author, given his huge prolific output in other genres.

Tolkien had an unusually full and mostly happy life, being lucky with his guardians after the early deaths of his parents, very sucessful as an academic and novelist, with a talent for friendship and an unusually strong and happy marriage and four children.

Lewis, like Tolkien, his close friend, was a committed Christian and very successful academically and as a novelist and theologian, raised his wife’s sons after her death, and his brother, while an alcoholic, was also a distinguished military historian who outlived him by years.

Most of the complications of Blyton’s life were from her affairs!

JK Rowling seems to be a contented person, and hugely rich and successful.

Forest is a genius, OP.

Agree Enid Blyton seems to have been a fairly awful human being.

I don't think C S Lewis had an especially sad life; yes of course sad bits in it, but I don't think it was beyond what was common. In fact one of his own books about his life is called "surprised by Joy"
everyone's life is touched at points by death illness and sometimes tragedy.
I don't know enough about A A Milne to comment but apart from EB the rest seem to do ok

I agree that Antonia Forest is wonderful, and among the very best authors for children, but I'm not sure her comparatively happy life is typical of a children's author.

I would offer Diana Wynne Jones, who had an awful childhood. She used to say that the way the children in Time of the Ghost lived was all true but it was toned down because nobody would credit the whole lot even as fiction.

How about Kenneth Grahame, of Wind in the Willows? He was brought up by ferocious and unsympathetic Aunts, after his mother died when he was five and his father, who was a drunk, gave him and the other three children to their grandmother to look after.

Beatrix Potter was fed on a diet of boiled mutton as a child, and later was not allowed by her parents to marry the man she loved because she was "quality" and he was "trade" he was her publisher and then a month after she defiantly decided to marry him anyway he died of pernicious anaemia.

Enid Blyton was despised by and disliked her mother, but adored her father, who walked out on the family when she was thirteen to go and live with his mistress. She was completely gutted and never really forgave him for abandoning her to the mother who had no interest in her and thought that her writing was "a waste of time and money".

Rosemary Sutcliff had childhood arthritis and was in constant pain all her life.

Forest is a genius, OP.

Seconded.

L.M. Montgomery seems to have had a sad life. As well as a difficult childhood, even after becoming a successful author, she had an unhappy marriage and may have committed suicide.

I don’t think it’s entirely fair to count Beatrix Potter’s life as generally unhappy — her early life was, immediately after Warne’s death, she bought her Lake District farm, met the man she would be married to happily for 30 years, and whose family she became absorbed into, and started her other happy non-writing life of sheep breeding, preserving LD landscapes etc.

Edith Nesbit’s life is fascinating — she had a shotgun wedding 7 months pregnant, by a man who turned out to have got another woman who also thought she was his fiancée pregnant, and then went on to have several children with Edith’s friend who lived with them as a secretary-housekeeper, with Edith adopting the children.

Also, did you know Enid Bagnold (National Velvet) is Samantha Cameron’s great-great grandmother?

@Heffalumpsdaughter I guess you areright about the time/antibiotics and so playing a role. People had really sad life’s in the past.

@Argonauts Why was EnidBlyton awful?

@TeacupDrama I may be wrong but I do think that “Surprised by Joy“ was about his conversion to Christianity, wasn‘t it and that he thoughtthought life was sad prior o Christianity or did I get this wrong? I do not remember so well.

Rowling had crippling depression and was very poor at one point.

P L Travers had a hard life as well, if I remember rightly?

I think PL Travers was orphaned and grew up in poverty.

I agree Antonia Forest is a genius. Sadly, I shall have to sell a kidney to ever afford Run Away Home. If I ever win the Premium Bonds it is the first thing I shall buy.

I think Rumer Godden had a miserable life at boarding school .
Noel Streatfeild was intensely jealous of her prettier sisters and badgered continually to pray for help. Enough to make anyone sour.

Laura Ingalls Wilder...I'm not sure. The whole family were beset by disasters. They do seem to be very close, especially Mary and Laura. However I think the books are very heavily edited.

Now I'm wondering about Arthur Ransome.

What was sad about JK Rowlings life?

JK Rowling’s teenage years were sad. She has to contend with her mothers MS and she had issues with her father, who she’s now NC with.

As an adult she had a miscarriage and suffered domestic violence during her marriage. After leaving her abusive husband she was unemployed, on benefits and diagnosed with depression and regularly contemplated suicide.

She wrote in cafes, namely her BILs, because it was the easiest way to get her daughter to sleep. Her mother also died before she could tell her about Harry Potter.

Twelve publishers rejected Harry Potter, but Bloomsbury picked it up and two years later it was published.

So yeah, Dinosforall, NotSuchASmugMarriedNow1 and user1473878824, JK Rowling struggled during her first few decades in life.

JK Rowling seems to be a contented person, and hugely rich and successful.

Now she is, yes, but it’s taken her a long time and a lot of hard work to get there.

I’m a children’s writer and I know hundreds more. We are no sadder than anyone else.

Writers do use personal pain as inspiration in their work. It’s an outlet for us. But we’re not always crying in garrets. Promise.

In "When Hitler stole pink rabbit" by Judith Kerr the character Anna, who is based on Judith, she reads a book "They who grew to be great". All the people who grew to be great had difficult childhoods, Anna is upset she has not had a difficult childhood - the irony is the story is about how they fled from Nazi persecution.

U think you could probs my bane skmikst conclusions about any 5 prior ffin any occupation though, particularly those alive during the world wars and pre NHS. Or do you want to show cause abd effect between sad kids and being a published fiction writer?

Deiressuob, cancer, death, poverty etc are not unique to writers!

C.S. Lewis had his brother die from alcoholism and his wife (or was it the girlfriend) die from cancer

They got married in hospital as Joy Davidman was having cancer treatment. This is beautifully portrayed in the film of his biography “Shadowlands”, with Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger.

In the case of CS Lewis, he was already an established chikdren’s novelist and academic before he met Joy. She wrote to him as her son enjoyed his books and their relationship grew from there, but was largely letters as first since she was American, living in the USA. She didn’t relocate to the UK until a few years later, and initially, the marriage was only one of convenience for immigration purposes. They continued to live seperately and CS Lewis is recorded as havingbobkyna platonic friendship with her (although she loved him, this was unreciprocated). Any of her influence on his writing is probably minimal and rather late into the Narnia series. The Narnia books were published 1950-56. CS Lewis and Joy were only married 1956 until her death in 1960.

CS Lewis did ultimatelycome to love Joy, published a book about love/faith/Christianity after her death.

Just curious: Why did JK Rowling stop talking to her father. I think it is always very sad if a kid stops talking to her father.