The Enid Blyton Society

Barbara Constance Freeman (29 November 1906 – 1999) was an English writer and illustrator of books for children and young adults.
Biography

Barbara Constance Freeman was born on 29 November 1906 in Ealing, near London. She attended the Tiffin Girls' School in Kingston upon Thames in Surrey and later studied at the Kingston School of Art.[1]

She illustrated many books by other writers, including The Treasure Hunters by Enid Blyton, and many collections of fairy tales, both traditional tales by Grimm and Andersen and modern stories. Some of her earliest illustrations are found in The Cuckoo Book (1942), a book of fairy tales by Edith Mary Bell. She also contributed to comics, including Playhour, and to annuals, such as, Blackie's Children's Annual 1934.[2]

By the 1960s she had begun writing and illustrating her own books for children and young adults. Some have a touch of fantasy: in Two-Thumb Thomas the eponymous hero is raised by school cats; in Broom-Adelaide, a fox rides a flying broomstick. Some, including Lucinda and The Name on the Glass, are set in the past, while in others, such as A Book by Georgina and The Other Face, the lives of the main characters are interwoven with history.

Her books have not remained in print, but some of her illustrations are still available as posters and art prints.

pete9012S wrote: I've just bought a book by her from amazon for £4.44 which sounded rather intriguing:


A Haunting Air Edition: first Hardcover – 1977

Gets a good review on amazon.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Haunting-Air-Ba ... bc?ie=UTF8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"Barbara C. Freeman is a gentle writer, with a particular appeal to girls. She makes no great demands of her readers, but does provide good entertainment. Anyone wanting easy, fluent, romantic stories would do well to consider her work." So wrote Felicity Trottman in Twentieth-Century Children's Writers.

Freeman was both a writer and artist, starting out primarily as an illustrator. "I write, I suppose, chiefly because I enjoy writing," she later said. "I like living in two worlds: the one I was born into and the other (which becomes entirely real) which I write about. I'm deeply interested in the way ordinary people lived in the past and the way in which the past thrusts into the present. I believe that most writers find that their characters develop lives of their own and sometimes take charge of both conversations and plots. This, for me, is pure delight, and I allow my people all the freedom that is possible.

"At art school I was trained to observe details of every kind, and it is a habit that one never grows out of. Details, especially those of the past, fascinate me."

Barbara Constance Freeman was born in Ealing, Middlesex, on 29 November 1906, the daughter of writer and secondhand bookseller William Freeman and his wife Lucy Constance Freeman (nee Rimmington), who were married in 1905. She studied at the Tiffin Girls' School, Kingston-upon-Thames and at Kingston School of Art.

Freeman began working as a painter with Green & Abbott, a West End wallpaper studio (1926-27). From there she turned freelance, often working on annuals. She specialised as an artist of fairy tales, although in a realistic style with fantastic elements. She was often called upon to illustrate classic stories the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. She also produced illustrations for The Children's Encyclopedia.

As television grew and the number of annuals and entertainments for children disappeared in the 1950s, Freeman turned to writing her own stories, beginning in 1956. He first books, Timi and Two-Thumb Thomas, were published in 1961.

Her work was exhibited at the Heritage Centre, Kingston-upon-Thames Museum, in 1989.

Since her early childhood, she lived in a mid-Victorian house with a large garden, from which she drew much of her inspiration. She died in May 1999.

PUBLICATIONS

Timi. London, Faber, 1961; New York, Grosset and Dunlap, 1970.
Two-Thumb Thomas. London, Faber, 1961.
A Book by Georgina. London, Faber, 1962; New York, Norton, 1968.
Broom-Adelaide. London, Faber, 1963; Boston, Little Brown, 1965.
The Name on the Glass. London, Faber, 1964; New York, Norton, 1966.
Lucinda. London, Faber, 1965; New York, Norton, 1967.
Tobias. London, Faber, 1967.
The Forgotten Theatre. London, Faber, 1967.
The Other Face. London, Macmillan, 1975; New York, Dutton, 1976.
A Haunting Air. London, Macmillan, 1976; New York, Dutton, 1977.
A Pocket of Silence. London, Macmillan, 1977; New York, Dutton, 1978.
The Summer Travellers. London, Macmillan, 1978.
Snow in the Maze. London, Macmillan, 1979.
Clemency in the Moonlight. London, Macmillan, 1981.

Tony Summerfield wrote:I have a feeling that she also illustrated some reprints that won't show up in the Cave search, but I could be wrong!