Antonia Forest
(1915 - 2003)
Antonia Forest was the pseudonym of a British author of children’s books, best known for the Marlows series. Her real name was not made public during her lifetime.
Her real name was Patricia Rubinstein, a name that only her closest friends knew.
Now she is referred to by her full name of Patricia Giulia Caulfield Kate Rubinstein. She was born to part Russian-Jewish and Irish parents. She grew up in Hampstead, London, and was educated at South Hampstead High School and University College, London.
It could be said that she embraced the way of life of the upper middle classes of the English shires with the zeal of the convert. From 1938 until her death she lived in Bournemouth, Dorset, and from the end of 1946 she was a Roman Catholic. Eventually she summarized herself as “middle-aged, narrow-minded, anti-progressive AND PROUD OF IT”.
Forest’s books have received critical praise from the likes of Victor Watson, who called her ‘the Jane Austen’ of children’s literature and Alison Shell, who has studied Forest’s theme of recusant Catholicism.
Bibliography
The Attic Term (1976)
Ginty Marlow is pretty, clever and popular. But then she breaks the rules and gets herself in trouble.
Autumn Term (1948)
Twins Nicola and Lawrie Marlow join their four older sisters at Kingscote School.
Celebrating Antonia Forest (2008)
A collection of essays about Antonia Forest and her work. Includes material that was cut from Run Away Home.
Various
The Cricket Term (1974)
Twins Nicola and Lawrie Marlow spend the summer term at Kingscote School on cricket and drama.
End of Term (1959)
Nicola and Lawrie Marlow return for their second fall term at Kingscote School.
Falconer’s Lure (1957)
The Marlows inherit Trennels Old Farm and move to the country where they spend the summer holidays.
The Marlows and the Traitor (1953)
The four younger Marlows and their mother are spending the Easter holidays by the sea when they stumble on a spy.
Peter’s Room (1961)
Over the Christmas holidays the younger Marlows and Patrick Merrick enter the land of Gondal and find more than they expected.
The Players and the Rebels (1971)
This is the second part of Antonia Forest’s historical romance of Shakespeare’s time.
The Player’s Boy (1970)
This is the first part of Antonia Forest’s historical novel about Shakespeare and his times.
The Ready-Made Family (1967)
When nineteen year old Karen Marlow announces she is giving up Oxford to marry a recently widowed man with three children, her family is not amused.
Run Away Home (1982)
The Marlows help a young boy return to his father, but it requires a dangerous sea voyage.
The Thuggery Affair (1965)
Peter Marlow and Patrick Merrick get on the track of a gang of drug runners.
The Thursday Kidnapping (1963)
When the Ramsay children turn their backs on the buggy where the baby they are minding is sleeping, it disappears -- with the baby in it.