#Noel Streatfeild

[uwmspeccoll]

French Fairy Treasures

Around the World Treasures: Famous French Fairy Tales by the father of the French fairy tale Charles Perrault (1628-1703) and collected and adapted from the original Perrault by David Stone, was published in New York by Frankin Watts Inc., a division of Grolier, in 1959. The book includes The Picture Story of Perrault's Famous French Fairy Tales, illustrated by British artist and teacher Charles Mozley (1914-1991), a book illustrator and designer of posters, book covers, and print. Along with these striking color drawings are black-and-white illustrations depicting key moments within each story. Noel Streatfeild (1895-1986), an English children's book author, provides an introduction to the book. In it, she details the essential moments in Perrault's life that led him to write these stories. According to Streatfeild, before Perrault's Contes, nobody had ever read a fairy tale! Before that, these stories were passed down and enjoyed through oral tradition.

Perrault played a significant role in the literary controversy called the "Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns." At 23, he became a lawyer, following in his father's footsteps, before embarking on a political career, which led him into the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV of France. Spending time in his court is where Perrault garnered inspiration to write his stories. His simple, unaffected style breathed new life into half-forgotten folk tales. Interestingly, some of his versions influenced the German tales collected by the Brothers Grimm more than a century later.

So, whether you find yourself wondering in the woods like Little Red Riding Hood or dreaming of glass slippers like Cinderella, Perrault's timeless tales remain a delightful part of our childhood imagination, capturing the magic and wonder of storytelling for generations to come!

-Melissa, Special Collections Graduate Intern

-View more posts from our Historical Curriculum Collection

[laurapetrie]

It’s me. I'm Anne Boleyn. I'm the most important person.

Noel Streatfeild, Party Shoes (1945)

[first--lines]

The children had known for days that something was going to happen. There were conferences in low voices behind the study door. The servants talked and then broke off abruptly when one of the children passed by. Miss Herbert, the governess, closed her lips more tightly than usual while her eyes, behind her gold pince-nez, said as clearly as if they had spoken: “Wouldn't you like to know what I know.”

  —  A Vicarage Family (Noel Streatfeild)

[theyre-gay-because-i-say-so]

Today's LGBT+ Headcanon is;

Petrova Fossil from Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild-Lesbian

Requested by @absolutelynotclassicusernam-blog

Status: Alive

[shadowland]

fortunately bought a copy of this book at the start of the year by coincidence, and it acts as a perfect story for the Ice Princess

[starspanner]

20 books that have had an impact on who you are. One book a day for 20 days. No explanations, no reviews, just book covers.

4/20

[eightopals]

This method of teaching someone to swim was described briefly in Noel Streatfeild’s children’s book The Circus Is Coming (in the U.S., called Circus Shoes). I was bewildered but figured it was just one of those old-timey things and I could read the rest of the story without needing to understand this oddity.

But somehow, looking at this, I can see why they were doing it. Young Peter and Santa Posset are living a nomadic life with the circus in the 1930s. Very few of the towns in which they stop had public pools. They are going to be swimming from ocean beaches, which are not a great place to try to teach someone the basics of how you move your arms and legs in swimming.

It still seems kind of ridiculous, but people had to make do.

Olympian Larry “Buster” Crabbe teaching how to swim.

[eightopals]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Wintle's Wonders - Noel Streatfeild Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Hilary Lennox/OMC, Dulcie Wintle/OMC Characters: Rachel Lennox, Hilary Lennox, Dulcie Wintle, Original Characters, Tom Lennox Additional Tags: Filming, Films, Acting, Hollywood, Show Business, Married Couple, Established Relationship, Music, Fame, Awards, Developing Friendships, Character Development, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Children, Sisters Summary:

Rachel gets tapped for a great honor, and her sister and cousin are there.

[fictionadventurer]

Reblog and tell me about a movie/book/show that isn't Christmas-themed, but you still like to experience at Christmastime.

[isfjmel-phleg]

In true [Marion] Fairfax style, her [1919] script of The Secret Garden is a model of creepy details and shifty, underhanded dealings. These include Mary's two forays into a bog, and Dr. Craven's plot to poison Colin so that the doctor can inherit the manor. The movie is designed to keep filmgoers in a state of pop-eyed anxiety, but it also gratifies the softhearted by interposing an especially doting Mrs. Sowerby, and by marrying off Colin and Mary, who in this version are not cousins. Fairfax's Mrs. Medlock is a punishing crone who forces Mary to hem towels as a penalty for having helped Colin remove a brace prescribed by the sadistic Dr. Craven. At the end of the picture, the garden is "full of bloom, and happiness reigns"; but an important function of this mysterious walled quadrangle on the grounds of Misselthwaite is to serve as a place of retribution in which the children bury Colin's brace, to even the score with the malevolent medic.

--Sally Sims Stokes, "Painting the Garden: Noel Streatfeild, the Garden as Restorative, and Pre-1950 Dramatizations of The Secret Garden," from In the Garden: Essays in Honor of Frances Hodgson Burnett, edited by Angelica Shirley Carpenter

The first film adaptation of The Secret Garden was made in 1919. It has since been lost, but its script and a summary do still exist, from which Stokes derives the above description. It is interesting how many elements not from the book that are part of this adaptation have continued to be used by later films, such as the villainization of the doctor and Mrs. Medlock, romance between the children, and sensationalized action sequences. Yet unlike many later versions, it includes Mrs. Sowerby in a significant role.

[pers-books]

National Theatre announces complete casting for Ballet Shoes – including Pearl Mackie

The much-loved novel by Noel Streatfeild heads to the venue

Pearl Mackie for the National Theatre.

Noel Streatfeild’s best-selling book Ballet Shoes will be adapted for the stage by Kendall Feaver (The Almighty Sometimes) – and complete casting has been revealed.

The show will open on the National Theatre’s Olivier stage from 23 November 2024, with the festive family show directed by Katy Rudd, who returns to the National Theatre following her acclaimed production of The Ocean at the End of the Lane. 

The piece follows three adopted sisters living in a crumbling house, learning to forge a future while keeping their family together.

As already revealed, appearing are Eryck Brahmania (ensemble), Cordelia Braithwaite (ensemble), Michelle Cornelius (ensemble), Sonya Cullingford (Winifred), Jenny Galloway (Nana), Courtney George (ensemble), Georges Hann (ensemble), Nadine Higgin (Theo Dane), Helena Lymbery (Doctor Jakes), Xolisweh Ana Richards (Ballerina), Sid Sagar (Jayan Saravanan), Grace Saif (Pauline Fossil), Justin Salinger (GUM) and Daisy Sequerra (Posy Fossil).

Joining them are Stacy Abalogun (ensemble), Yanexi Enriquez (Petrova Fossil), Philip Labey (ensemble), Katie Lee (on-stage swing), Sharol Mackenzie (ensemble), Pearl Mackie (Sylvia), Nuwan Hugh Perera (ensemble), and Katie Singh (ensemble).

Alongside Rudd’s direction, the show’s creative team includes set designer Frankie Bradshaw, costume designer Samuel Wyer, choreographer Ellen Kane, composer Asaf Zohar, dance arrangements and orchestrations Gavin Sutherland, lighting designer Paule Constable, sound designer Ian Dickinson for Autograph, video designer Ash J Woodward, casting director Bryony Jarvis-Taylor, dialect coach Penny Dyer, voice coaches Cathleen McCarron and Tamsin Newlands, associate choreographer Jonathan Goddard and staff director Aaliyah Mckay.

(Two theatre projects for Who alums in one day! Nice!)

[regardstosoulandromance]

obsessed with noel streatfeild writing two aunt cora’s who are evil in totally different ways. who was cora and what did she do.

[paintingslaurlikes]

Lewis Baumer. Noel Streatfeild. 1926. Oil on canvas. National Portrait Gallery, London.

[carriagelamp]

A few days late, but I'm lazy...

My favourite books that I read during 2023!

I got really lucky this year, I read some ridiculously good books, to the point that I had a really hard time narrowing them down. And I cheated on a few and bunched them up so I wouldn't have to choose 🙃

I did more detailed assessments of the books in my month reviews, but for anyone that's interested in something I read, here's a quick description:

Annie: An Old-Fashioned Story by Thomas Meehan -- A novelization of the Little Orphan Annie story, close related to the film musical including references to the songs. A charming read that captures the enjoyment of the film but adds a lot more details into the struggles and hardships Annie would have gone through during life on her own in the Depression.

Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild -- Three girls from a poor family in London end up being welcomed to a ballet academy where they have the opportunity to learn not only how to dance, but to begin attending performances that let them earn money for their family. Follows the heart warming adventures of sisters with a nice balance of financial hardship and obligations during the Depression.

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle -- A possession horror based around religious trauma and sexual identity. Fantastic prose and genuinely chilling at points without ever feeling hopeless. Here the demons that start stalking people in this God-fearing Montana town are both metaphorical and literal.

A Christmas Story by Jean Shepherd -- A collection of radio stories that follow the childhood misadventures of Ralphie; these stories would go to make up the classic film A Christmas Story, and Shepherd's hilarious, clever prose makes it a very fun read whether you know the film or not.

Doctor Who: Scratchman by Tom Baker -- I actually read a number of pretty good Doctor Who novels this year (13 Doctors 13 Stories, Time Lord Fairytales, Silhouette) and even a Torchwood one (Skypoint) but Scratchman was probably my favourite of the lot. The Fourth Doctor, Sarah, and Harry find themselvese in a horror adventures as they try to defend a host of villagers against an invading force of evil, skeletal scarecrows that are attempting to infect the humans around them.

Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones -- The star Sirius is accused of killing another luminary and losing a powerful instrument called a Zoi. His sentence for this crime is to be stripped of his powers and cast down to earth, to spend one lifetime living in a humble, mortal form - that of a true dog. If he can survive and find the Zoi within that lifetime, he will be welcomed back to the cosmos.

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire -- A novella that explores the rehabilitation of children who had been chosen, who found a doorway and stepped into another, strange world. Adventures done, they now need to acclimatize themselves to living in the rigid confines of the real world.

Grandpa's Great Escape by David Walliams -- A hilarious and surprisingly heart-warming story about a boy and his grandfather who was a flying ace during the war. With his mind beginning to fail him, the grandfather is sent to live at a sinister and definitely evil old folks' home. Only Jack can save him.

Hazel's Shadow by Nicole MacCarron -- Hazel has always been plagued by strange visions - the ability to see and speak to ghosts, as well as the knowledge of a strange, nameless horror living in her grandmother's house. Things come to a head though, when a sudden, zombie-like illness explodes through her town leaving only a few left alive, too many ghosts to count, enemies at every turn, and the shadow waiting for them.

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree -- (as well as it's sequel that came out later in the year, Bookshops & Bonedust). This was such a pleasant, low-stakes, domestic fantasy about Viv, an orcish ex-mercenary who has decided she's tired of fighting and would rather settle down and open a coffeeshop. One of the sticking points being, of course, that no one knows what coffee is.

Love Beyond Body, Space & Time by assorted authors, anthology -- An Indigenous queer sci-fi anthology with a really excellent collection of stories, including an author I already knew and loved! The stories explore a wide range of gender, sexuality, magic, machines, and ways of being, I highly recommend picking it up!

A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske -- Robin, a young baronet, thought he was being shunted into the most out of the way and miserable public servant position imaginable. He expected things to be tedious but necessary. He did not expect to suddenly learn that magic is real and to be tangled in its machinations in a potentially lethal way.

(MDZS) Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu -- Rejoice, because the feared Yiling Patriarch, the necromancer terror who slaughtered thousands, is dead! And has been dead the past decade. And is now very, very confused to wake up in a new body that isn't his, in a room he's never seen before, and to be thrust into the middle of a murder mystery where everyone would want him dead if they were to learn his real identity.

Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson -- Moomins hibernate through the winter, that's how it has always been for them. So when young Moomintroll wakes and finds the rest of his family still fast asleep, he's left feeling lost and isolated in this new, strange, snow covered world beyond his door.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers -- (and its sequel A Prayer for the Crown-Shy) A very gentle, compassionate sci-fi novel that explores a world humans have created post-climate-crisis. Life is different, the past distant, and a young tea monk never expected to run into an actual robot, who had so long ago left humanity to live their own secluded life in the wilds. Now they're both struggling to answer the question "What do humans need?"

The Radium Girls by Kate Moore -- (and Kate Moore's other book The Woman They Could Not Silence) The Radium Girls is a narrative non-fiction book that looks at the lives of the girls who were paid to paint luminous watch dials using radium paint. It explores the horror, exploitation, and suffering that came from work place negligence and the world's gradual learning about what exactly radium can do.

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston -- Presidential son and British prince are forced together for the sake of publicity - to prove that they don't actual hate each other and aren't going to cause a diplomatic incident. They cause a whole new and exciting diplomatic incident by falling in love! Do not read this for the politics, but it did end up being way way better than I expected, this author creates quite compelling characters.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett -- Sour, spoiled, and ill Mary is sent to live with her distant uncle on the Yorkshire moors. Set to be as contrary and unhappy as possible, little by little Mary begins to come out of her shell as she experiences nature, play, and love for perhaps the first time in her life.

System Collapse by Martha Wells -- Newest Murderbot book!! Murderbot, ART's crew, and the humans from Preservation are doing their best to defend the colonists on a plant that's cursed with a strange, alien plague from being consumed by the more immediate threat of corporate slavery. Something, however, seems to be wrong with Murderbot and its worried that if it can't fix the problem soon, it may cost its humans their lives.

(TGCF) Heaven Official's Blessing by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu -- Xie Lian is a god. Was a good. He has ascended to godhood twice, and been banished back to earth twice. Once a favour among the gods, he is now a laughing stock, a scrap-collecting god who has been forgotten by almost everyone. So it is with some shock and exasperation to all involved when he ascends for a third time.

This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone -- A ridiculous poetic novella written through improbable letters that are written between two time travels on opposites sides of a time war. Seriously, this is probably the most beautiful book I read this year, go read it, the hype is justified.

Wave Me Goodbye by Jacqueline Wilson -- As World War Two rages, Shirley, like many children of the time, is sent from her home in London to be housed by a foster family in the country in order to avoid the Blitz. Put up with two boys in the strange, mostly empty Red House, Shirley has to find a new life for herself out in the country.

When The Angels Left The Old Country by Sacha Lamb -- Uriel the angel and Little Ash the demon find themselves drawn from their usual lives when a young girl from their shtetl goes missing after emigrating to America. Both with their own reasons for wanting to leave the old country, they set off on a sea voyage that will change everything for them.

Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame -- The classic stories of Rat, Mole, and Toad. The story begins when Mole, venturing out of his little burrow, meets Rat and winds up living with him in his little home by the river rather than returning to his own, lonely, little hole. From there they have a variety of domestic adventures over the seasons, most notable being Toad's ill-fated obsession with motor cars.

[hotvintagepoll]

Moira Sherar propaganda but there's a story that when Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild (the books Meg Ryan is crying about in FOX books in You've Got Mail) was about to come out the publishers wanted some photos of three girls dancing to help advertise the book so she went to a local dance school and Moria Sherar was the girl they picked to pose as Posy! (The youngest red head who ends up being the proper ballet dancer) So the red shoes was destined for her

I looked this up and it’s true! Very cute.

[justforbooks]

Sylvia Plath’s Tomato Soup Cake

A fun but often unpalatable collection of recipes by authors including Robert Graves, Norman Mailer and Beryl Bainbridge should come with a trigger warning. Anyone for Instant Mince or Dutch Onion Crisps?

In most instances, the words “I can’t cook” are a lie: the person saying them is perfectly able in the kitchen, and just being needy, excessively modest or anxious (maybe their sauce split before you arrived). But sometimes, alas, the phrase is just a simple statement of fact. At the tail end of the 1970s, for instance, the editor of a book called Writers’ Favourite Recipes asked the novelist Beryl Bainbridge what she liked to make for supper after a long day at the typewriter. Bainbridge carefully prefaced what she had to tell him with the phrase (used by her children) “I am a very bad cooker”, but the editor was not – woe! – to be put off. Her recipe for Instant Mince was indeed included in the collection, for all that it was quite obviously a crime not only against mince, but also against potatoes, tinned tomatoes, vinegar, and any human beings who might end up having to eat it (in case you’re wondering, the four ingredients are combined and boiled vigorously until the pan is “almost dry”).

For a while, of course, Beryl’s Instant Mince was pretty much lost to posterity; cook books go out of print, and with them the culinary outrages of the past (“spoon the instant mince on to [buttered, white] bread and cover with HP sauce, also raw onion rings”). But now, like some horrible alien in a movie, it’s back, for another editor has seen fit to gather it into a new collection of author’s recipes titled Sylvia Plath’s Tomato Soup Cake, where it lurks next to several other equally unappetising confections: Robert Graves’s Mock Anchovy Pate, Norman Mailer’s Stuffed Mushrooms, Rebecca West’s Dutch Onion Crisps. As you may tell, this is not a book for the easily-made-queasy, and though I am usually implacably opposed to trigger warnings, I think it should have come with one: This Book Includes Scenes Featuring Large Quantities of Margarine and Fillet of Beef Served With Bananas. Some Readers May Find It Distressing.

The beef and bananas – how the stomach resists even the typing of this combination! – is the creation of Noel Streatfeild, the author of Ballet Shoes and another of those who baldly admits to being “a very bad cook”. Streatfeild insists that she has practised her “Filets de Boeuf aux Bananas” (NB the French here is a clever but ultimately ineffective smokescreen) and that she got the recipe from an acquaintance in whose house she was staying. But if I tell you that it comprises steak served with bananas that have been fried in breadcrumbs and an egg sauce that is seasoned with horseradish, you’ll understand immediately that Malcolm Gladwell’s principles of success do not apply here. You could spend 10,000 hours perfecting this dish, and it would still be fit only for the dustbin – though I would still be marginally more inclined to eat it than Graves’s Pate, which is made from minced fish, egg and steamed jellyfish. I believe him when he notes that “nobody at the table will know what they are eating”.

It’s not all bad. The book does include the odd recipe from the famously sybaritic and greedy, and even from a couple of writers noted for their abilities as cooks. You probably can’t go wrong with Ian Fleming’s scrambled eggs (whips to the ready), or Rosamond Lehmann’s extravagant variation on shepherd’s pie (the secret ingredient is orange peel). Kingsley Amis offers us his fromage à la crème, a perfect combination of egg whites, cream cheese, cream and sugar, though one knows perfectly well that he probably never actually made it for himself – and sure enough, a mere few pages later, up pops his longsuffering ex-wife, Elizabeth Jane Howard, whose devils on horseback come from the cookbook she wrote with the restaurant critic Fay Maschler (a brilliant volume that I own and use often).

Nora Ephron is here, and Laurie Colwin: two fabulous American novelist-cooks, neither one of whom, so far as I know, was inclined to make a cake using canned soup as Sylvia Plath did (she got the recipe from her mother, Aurelia). But in the end, we’re forced to conclude two things on closing this (OK, I’ll admit it) very fun little book. First, that famous writers are no better than the rest of us when it comes to cooking, and often a good deal worse; at present, I’m finding Rebecca West’s onion-crisp-things to be more indelible even than her journalism. Second, that distracted as they are by plot and character, they may be a danger both to themselves and to other people in the kitchen. Margery Allingham wrote some very fine detective stories, but her insistence that her salad cream will last for a year is suspicious-making to put it lightly.

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