Children's fiction author listings.

[MJE]

Hallo.

     I'm wondering whether anyone knows of any comprehensive web sites which give databases or author listings for children's books generally - a little like isfdb.org for science-fiction or fantasticfiction.com for "fantastic fiction" (which seems to be broader than science-fiction).
     In these sites, you can enter either a book title or an author and get information about the title or author, including (more or less) complete listings of series and novels and short stories by the author. Every even slightly-known author is covered, and a huge number of very obscure authors, too, and these sites probably make a reasonable approach to covering every published author within the field.
     Is there anything like this for children's literature?
     Thanks.

Regards, Michael.

[Anita Bensoussane]

The 'Fantastic Fiction' site seems to deal with all kinds of writers of fiction - not only ones who wrote/write fantasy stories. I've looked up Laura Ingalls Wilder, Malcolm Saville, Richmal Crompton and Antonia Forest on there in the past. It lists adult authors as well as children's authors though, and I've no idea whether it aims to cover as many writers as possible or whether it simply concentrates on the most popular.

The 'Fantastic Fiction' entry for Enid Blyton isn't very accurate, though the listings for authors with a relatively small output may be more reliable:

https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/enid-blyton/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I don't know if there's a similar site dedicated to children's literature, Michael, but it would be good to have one.

[MJE]

The 'Fantastic Fiction' site seems to deal with all kinds of writers of fiction - not only ones who wrote/write fantasy stories. I've looked up Laura Ingalls Wilder, Malcolm Saville, Richmal Crompton and Antonia Forest on there in the past. It lists adult authors as well as children's authors though, and I've no idea whether it aims to cover as many writers as possible or whether it simply concentrates on the most popular.

     I refer to that site a lot, and I agree that it covers many kinds of literature, beyond the science-fiction I once thought it focused on. I think it counts as "fantastic fiction" almost any genre fiction, even almost anything outside what you might think of as mainstream realistic or literary fiction. But I certainly think it is more complete in some areas than others, and children's books, while covered as you say, are one of the areas where it is much less complete - in contrast to science-fiction or fantasy or horror, where almost everything that exists seems to be covered.
     I just now tried entering three children's authors I have been trying to research recently: Arthur Waterhouse (probably best known for his three "Fells" books), Eric Leyland, and John Elsworth - and it had no entries for those authors.
     If a children's author wrote in some genre like science-fiction or horror, then you will be much more likely to find it covered, and it will probably be complete, or fairly close to complete. Hence you will find entries for Hugh Walters, Nicholas Fisk, E. C. Eliot(t) (different publishers vary on whether they have one or two "t"s at the end of that name), Angus MacVicar, Patrick Moore, Christopher Pike, Nicholas Pine - amongst many others. But the authors I named above (Waterhouse, Leyland, and Elsworth) did not write science-fiction, horror, or fantasy as far as I know, but just mainstream 1950s-type adventure stories - and Fantastic Fiction does not cover that at all well; and, as you noted, their Enid Blyton information is not all that accurate or complete.

The 'Fantastic Fiction' entry for Enid Blyton isn't very accurate,

     I just took a look out of curiosity - I would never make this my first stop for information about Enid Blyton: the Cave would have to take that position - or the several volumes of bibliography produced by Tony (I have three, I think, volumes of that - is that all there is?). I see Fantastic Fiction lists quite a few titles "by" Enid Blyton dated years after she died, without any explanation of how these came into existence. Were they written by someone else under her name? - are they authentic books of hers but retitled? - are some of them (the "Shadow the Sheep-dog" books for instance) excerpts from an original book ("Shadow the Sheep-Dog" in this example)? Who knows?

though the listings for authors with a relatively small output may be more reliable:

     I suppose it's far easier to be both accurate and complete with authors with a smaller output. Blyton is probably one of the most difficult of all authors to be both complete and accurate about, and it may not even be possible to fully accomplish this with her, although I expect Tony has probably come closer to that than anyone else in the world.
     There are authors (such as the three I named above that I had researched without results) where information just seems very hard to come by, although I have no evidence they were unusually prolific. I think they may have been reasonably well-known in the 1950s or thereabouts, but have become totally forgotten since then. Probably the best source of information on some of these that I know of, although it's far from complete, is http://www.collectingbooksandmagazines.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; .
     From time to time I've heard of someone called Jim Mackenzie who is supposed to be an expert on authors of this sort, but I haven't heard of him being active on the web anywhere for some years. He used to post on the Collecting Books and Magazines Yahoo Group when that was in operation.

I don't know if there's a similar site dedicated to children's literature, Michael, but it would be good to have one.

     There's a good opening for someone with expert knowledge to create something. It's probably not easy to find subject areas that some web site doesn't already cover quite thoroughly. I wouldn't be even nearly expert enough to consider it myself, though.

Regards, Michael.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Interesting points, Michael.

I certainly think it ['Fantastic Fiction'] is more complete in some areas than others, and children's books, while covered as you say, are one of the areas where it is much less complete - in contrast to science-fiction or fantasy or horror, where almost everything that exists seems to be covered.

I just tried looking up Katharine Tozer as I'd like to know more about her and there's very little information available on the internet, but she isn't listed on Fantastic Fiction. She wrote the 'Mumfie the Elephant' books, among others, which are children's fantasy stories about a toy elephant who goes on adventures (he even captures Hitler in the wartime book Mumfie Marches On!)

Regarding Eric Leyland, he also wrote under the pseudonyms Rita Coatts, Nesta Grant, Sylvia Little and Elizabeth Tarrant (books about girls' schools, I think), but those names don't appear on Fantastic Fiction either. I heard that he used male pseudonyms for some books as well, though I can't find any details.

I see Fantastic Fiction lists quite a few titles "by" Enid Blyton dated years after she died, without any explanation of how these came into existence. Were they written by someone else under her name? - are they authentic books of hers but retitled? - are some of them (the "Shadow the Sheep-dog" books for instance) excerpts from an original book ("Shadow the Sheep-Dog" in this example)? Who knows?

The Shadow books are excerpts from the original. Others are authentic too but are later editions/collections. As you say, it's not at all clear from the listings as they're incomplete, disorganised and confusing.

[MJE]

Regarding Eric Leyland, he also wrote under the pseudonyms Rita Coatts, Nesta Grant, Sylvia Little and Elizabeth Tarrant (books about girls' schools, I think), but those names don't appear on Fantastic Fiction either. I heard that he used male pseudonyms for some books as well, though I can't find any details.

     I didn't know about those Eric Leyland pseudonyms, so thanks. Where did you find out about them, Anita?
     I wouldn't quite say he is an author I want to make a complete collection of, but I had one of his books as a child (and probably still have it somewhere), and on the back cover it advertised 10 or so other titles, giving brief plot summaries which sounded exciting, and I wouldn't mind trying to find some of those.

As you say, it's not at all clear from the listings as they're incomplete, disorganised and confusing.

     Such as believing there are four "Mr. Galliano's Circus" books, not three. (They incorrectly include "Come to the Circus!" in that series. I think I once included it wrongly on my own Blyton page in its early days, before I corrected it - and any time I see a web site list it as a Galliano book, I at least half-wonder whether I am responsible for that, in giving false information which others then copied.)
     My suspicion is that certain fields such as children's fiction are considered within the ambit of the Fantastic Fiction site, but given a lower priority, so that they make less effort to research all the details and confirm the accuracy of information.

Regards, Michael.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Someone (Sixret, I think) once mentioned a couple of Eric Leyland's pseudonyms in a forums post, and I found out more on various websites. I read and enjoyed about four Eric Leyland mystery/adventure books just over four years ago, though he didn't quite match Enid Blyton when it came to pace, structure and intrigue.