They manage to retrieve her, and finally arrive at the cottage late at night. All the children are apprehensive about life in the country, being out and out town children, but she is particularly affected, being used to a life at ballet school and loving the theatre.
Their journey is full of trials, not the least of which is Francesca’s sudden attempt to return to town. It is planned that an old family friend will go to look after them, with their parents visiting at weekends, but a convenient chapter of accidents results in them going alone, in charge of 16 year old Deb. The four England children, Deborah, Petronalla (Peta), Everard and Francesca (also known as Pav, short for Pavlova, as she is training to be a ballet dancer), live in London with their parents, but they have all been ill with measles, and at the end of their summer term, their mother tells them that they instead of their usual fortnight at a smart hotel at the seaside, this year they are to have six weeks in a cottage in the Chilterns. In More About Being an Author, MEA says, “ My First Blackie Book, Chiltern Adventure, was quite a handsome affair, with a lovely jacket by Terrence Freeman, though the inside illustrations were undistinguished.” Later she says that the copyright was sold outright for a hundred pounds, although later Blackie books were on a royalty at a low price (she doubts they made a hundred pounds each). Chiltern Adventure was published by Blackie in 1950, and later republished by Fidra Books in paperback in 2006.
0 kommentar(er)
