Mary Norton

Mary Norton (1903-1992) spent her childhood in a late Georgian house that later became the model for Firbank Hall in The Borrowers. She acted at the Old Vic before marrying and moving to live in Portugal. During the Second World War she was evacuated to New York, USA, and struggled to support herself and her four children while her husband was in the Navy. It was then that she began to write, and in 1945 her first two children’s books, The Magic Bedknob and Bonfires and Broomsticks were published. These were later combined into a single volume, Bedknob and Broomstick. They were followed in 1952 by The Borrowers, which was awarded the Carnegie Medal, and three further titles: The Borrowers Afield, The Borrowers Afloat, and The Borrowers Aloft.