Finding Antonia

[elizahonig.livejournal.com]

DandyinChina mentioned, on a thread over at *Esther's Term,* final chapter, that A. Forest is completely obscure in Germany but a friend whose literary tastes she liked had recommended her. I wondered how everyone else found Antonia, who isn't blazingly famous (as she deserves to be) even in the English-speaking world. Certainly I have never met a single American who has read her works, except people to whom I recommended them.

Here's my story. I was in London in 1971, aged 12, with my parents. They deposited me at Foyles for, as I recall, several hours, while they did other business in town. They said that I could choose five books. I had a long time to consider, and chose Ruth Arthur's *A Candle in her Room,* Brian Fairfax-Lucy and Philippa Peirce's *The Children of the House,* Norah Lofts's *The Story of Maude Reede*, and Antonia Forest's *End of Term*. (I'm forgetting the fifth, but it was good too.) There was a list in the Forest book of all her other works, and over the following years my father would order them from Foyles as my Christmas presents. I found the last ones when I was travelling in England myself, some years later. Now I have a complete set in America (including *Thursday Kidnapping* and the Elizabethan books) and about 1/2 of another set at my Amsterdam apartment, just in case I need a fix while I'm there.

I am proud to have once introduced a scholarly art history article (published in French, Flemish, and English) with a quotation from *Autumn Term,* the one where Tim compares her father and Mrs. Todd as a person who paints vs. a merely "artistic" person. That's why I was so pleased to see him "live" in *Esther's Term.*

Any other stories? Or was Antonia Forest a quite obvious choice for everybody else?

Comments

[forester48.livejournal.com]

Falconer's Lure was the first one I read when I was about nine or so and I must have read and re-read the first few ones from the library because I didn't own any until I was in my twenties. I remember starting to collect them as an adult and it not being easy even in the 70s.

Shameful memory - I could not get hold of a copy of Ready Made Family so I borrowed a copy from the local library and then pretended to lose it. Worst of all they would not take more than a nominal fine although I pleaded with them to let me pay the full cost of the book.

Until I went on the web and found other fans I really did think I was one of a tiny minority of readers. I've never met anyone who's ever heard of Antonia Forest let alone read her books. I could never understand why they weren't more critically acclaimed and popular.

[(Anonymous)]

My parents bought me the first three school books one Christmas, and my local library had all the non-school books except Thursday Kidnapping (which I have still never read) and Run Away Home which I didn't know existed. Then when I was 13 (this was in 1985)we moved to another part of the country and I had to start a new school which I initially HATED. I loathed the place and felt utterly homesick the first three weeks and then I discovered Run Away Home in the school library. I had it out permanently from then on and swear it got me through the first horrible weeks of starting a new school ....

[(Anonymous)]

I read Autumn Term, and then the other puffin ones in the early 1980s.
And luckily my (old & dusty) school library had (old and dusty) hardbacks of most of the 'home' stories.

I couldn't afford to buy Marlows & the Traitor recently (I didn't get it when GGBP re-issued it) so I ended up buying a wonderfully cheap version of it in German from Abebooks and being very impressed with myself that I could actually follow it after having not read German for years. It helped that some of the passages were so familiar.

It seems that Traitor was printed twice in German, with different titles, but I've never come across one of the other titles.

[elizahonig.livejournal.com]

Amazing! The Marlows and the Traitor in German! Where can I get a copy of that?? What's the title in German? Have any of the other books been translated?

[(Anonymous)]

"Notsignal vom Leuchtturm" and "Die Marlows und der Verrater" (Verrater with an umlaut).

I got mine via www.abebooks.co.uk (from a German bookseller who posted worldwide). Ive never found another of the books in translation & I do have a good trawl through abebooks every now and again.

The names have been changed to Nicola, Laura and Jenny, which is a bit disconcerting, and they seem to have missed out the chapter(s) with Anquetil knocking out one of his crew while heading back out on his boat - its years since I read the English version, but I do remember that bit, and theres definitely a chunk missing. Everything else is just as I remembered though.

[(Anonymous)]

Ive just noticed there is a "Spionage voor de kust" by Antonia Forest on abebooks.de, if anyone wants to improve their Dutch...

(sorry I really am Anonymous btw, I dont have a Livejournal but Ive been lurking here a while)

*Mei