Editing Philippa Pearce

{{Short description|English children's author (1920–2006)}}
{{EngvarB|date=August 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}}
{{Infobox writer
|name = Philippa Pearce
|honorific_suffix = [[Order of the British Empire|OBE]] [[FRSL]]
|image = 
|caption = 
|pseudonym = 
|birth_name = Ann Philippa Pearce 
|birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1920|01|22}}<ref name="Guard020107">Nettell, Stephanie (2 January 2007). [https://www.theguardian.com/obituaries/story/0,,1981016,00.html "Obituary: Philippa Pearce"]. ''The Guardian''. Retrieved 4 July 2009.</ref><ref name="Ind231206">Tucker, Nicholas (23 December 2006). [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/philippa-pearce-429660.html "Obituary: Philippa Pearce"]. ''The Independent''. Retrieved 4 July 2009.</ref>
|birth_place = [[Great Shelford]], [[Cambridgeshire]], England
|death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|2006|12|21|1920|01|22}} 
|death_place = [[Durham, England|Durham]], England
|occupation = Writer
|nationality = British
|ethnicity = 
|citizenship = 
|education = 
|alma_mater = 
|period = 1955–2008
|genre = [[Children's literature|Children's]] [[fantasy]] and [[supernatural fiction]]
|subject = 
|movement = 
|notableworks = ''[[Tom's Midnight Garden]]''
|spouse = 
|partner = 
|children = 
|relatives = 
|influences = 
|influenced = 
|awards = {{awd|[[Carnegie Medal (literary award)|Carnegie Medal]]|1958}}
|signature = 
|website = 
|portaldisp = 
}}
'''Ann Philippa Pearce''' [[Order of the British Empire|OBE]] [[FRSL]] (22 January 1920 – 21 December 2006) was an [[English people |English]] author of [[children's books]]. Best known of them is the [[Time slip|time-slip]] novel ''[[Tom's Midnight Garden]]'', which won the 1958 [[Carnegie Medal (literary award)|Carnegie Medal]] from the [[CILIP|Library Association]], as the year's outstanding children's book by a [[British subject]].<ref name=medal1958/> Pearce was a commended runner-up for the Medal a further four times.<ref name=ccsu/>{{efn |name=HC}}

==Early life==
Ann Philippa Pearce was the youngest of four children of a flour miller and corn merchant, Ernest Alexander Pearce, and his wife Gertrude Alice ''née'' Ramsden, who lived at the Mill House by the [[River Cam]] in the village of [[Great Shelford]], Cambridgeshire, where she was brought up.<ref>Flyleaf biography on a 1987 Puffin Books reprint of her first children's novel, ''Minnow on the Say''; ODNB entry by Nicholas Tucker [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/97555, retrieved 22 July 2013. Pay/walled.]</ref> She started school only at the age of eight because of illness, then she went on to attend the [[Perse School for Girls]] in [[Cambridge]] and win a scholarship to [[Girton College, Cambridge]] to read English and History.

After gaining her degree, Pearce moved to London, where she found work as a civil servant. Later she wrote and produced schools' radio programmes for the [[BBC]], where she remained for 13 years. She was a children's editor at the [[Oxford University Press]] from 1958 to 1960 and at the [[André Deutsch]] publishing firm from 1960 to 1967.

==Writing career==
In 1951 Pearce spent a long period in hospital recovering from [[tuberculosis]]. She passed the time there thinking about a [[canoe]] trip she had taken many years before, which became the inspiration for her first book, a 241-page novel ''[[Minnow on the Say (novel)|Minnow on the Say]]'', published by Oxford in 1955 with illustrations by [[Edward Ardizzone]]. The book was a commended runner-up for the annual [[Carnegie Medal (literary award)|Carnegie Medal]].<ref name=ccsu/>{{efn |name=HC}} Like several of her subsequent books, it was inspired by the area where she had grown up: the villages of Great and Little Shelford became Great and Little Barley. Cambridge became Castleford in the book (nothing to do with [[Castleford, West Yorkshire|the real town of the same name]] in West Yorkshire) and lost its university; the River Cam became the River Say. ''Minnow'' was published in the US as ''The Minnow Leads to Treasure'' (1958).<ref>[http://lccn.loc.gov/58005773 "The Minnow leads to treasure"]. Library of Congress Catalog record. Retrieved 9 July 2012.</ref> It was [[film adaptation|adapted]] for television in Canada as a [[Minnow on the Say|1960 TV series with the original title]], and for British television in 1972 as ''Treasure over the Water''.

Pearce's second book was ''[[Tom's Midnight Garden]]'', published by Oxford in 1958. Its "midnight garden" was based directly on the garden of the Mill House where Pearce was raised. Pearce's advance for it was £1,000, which she thought "colossal".<ref name="Grove 2010 p. 59">{{cite book | last=Grove | first=V. | title=So Much To Tell | publisher=Penguin Books Limited | year=2010 | isbn=978-0-670-91908-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M11xQd9Px-sC&pg=PP59 | access-date=17 May 2023 | page=59}}</ref> The novel has become one of the classic time-slip stories for children, initiated by [[Alison Uttley]] with ''A Traveller in Time'' in 1939. ''Tom's Midnight Garden'' inspired a film, a stage play and three TV series. It won the annual Carnegie Medal and for the 70th anniversary celebration in 2007, a panel named it one of the top ten Medal-winning works, which composed the ballot for a public election of the nation's favourite,<ref name=topten/> in which ''Tom's Midnight Garden'' finished second in the vote, between two books that were about 40 years younger.<ref name=poll2007/>{{efn |name=poll2007}}

Pearce wrote over thirty books, including ''A Dog So Small'' (1962), ''[[The Squirrel Wife]]'' (1971), ''The Battle of [[Bubble and squeak|Bubble and Squeak]]'' (1978) and ''The Way To Sattin Shore'' (1983). ''The Shadow Cage and other tales of the supernatural'' (1977), ''Bubble and Squeak'', and ''Sattin Shore'' were the later three of her four Carnegie Medal runners-up.<ref name=ccsu/>{{efn |name=HC}} ''The Battle of Bubble and Squeak'' inspired a two-part television adaptation in [[Channel 4]]'s ''Talk, Write and Read'' series of educational programming.

Although not a prolific writer of full-length books, Pearce continued to work over subsequent years, as well as speaking at conferences, editing anthologies and writing short stories. She attended a 2002 reception for children's authors at [[Number 10 Downing Street]], the home of the Prime Minister.{{cn|date=May 2023}}

In 2004 Pearce published her first new full-length book for two decades, ''The Little Gentleman''. One further children's novel was published posthumously in 2008: ''A Finder's Magic''.<ref>Pearce, ''A Finder's Magic'', Walker Books, 2008. {{ISBN|978-1-4063-0922-5}}.</ref>

==Personal life==
Pearce married Martin Christie in 1962. They had one daughter, who became a children's author herself, as Sally Christie.<ref>Scholastic [https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/authors/sally-christie/ Retrieved 29 September 2018.]</ref> Martin Christie, who had never wholly recovered from being a [[Far East prisoners of war|Japanese prisoner of war]], died in 1964. From 1973 until her death from complications of a stroke in 2006, Philippa Pearce lived once again in Great Shelford, down the lane where she was raised.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-author-death-idUKL0324831720070103|date=21 January 2007|title="Tom's Midnight Garden" author dies aged 86|website=REUTERS|access-date=12 July 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/outstanding-writer-of-the-20th-century-7578748|last=Collins|first=Ian|date=19 February 2021|orig-date=23 December 2006|title=Outstanding writer of the 20th century|website=Eastern Daily Press|access-date=12 July 2022}}</ref>
==Legacy==
Every September from 2008, the Philippa Pearce Lecture at [[Homerton College, Cambridge]] celebrates "excellence in writing for children and to emphasize its continuing vital importance." The lecturers are children's literature authors, scholars or critics, and most of the lectures are published online.<ref name=lecture>
[http://www.pearcelecture.com/ "The Philippa Pearce Memorial Lecture: celebrating excellence in children's literature"]. Retrieved 18 November 2012.</ref>

==Selected books==
*''[[Minnow on the Say (novel)|Minnow on the Say]]'', illustrated by [[Edward Ardizzone]] (1955); US title, ''The Minnow Leads to Treasure''
*''[[Tom's Midnight Garden]]'', illustrated by [[Susan Einzig]] (1958)
*''A Dog So Small'' (1962)
*''The Children of Charlecote'' (1968)
*''[[The Squirrel Wife]]'', illustrated by Derek Collard (1971)
*''What the Neighbours Did and Other Stories'', illustrated by Faith Jaques, (1972)
*''The Shadow Cage and Other Tales of the Supernatural'' (1977)
*''The Battle of Bubble and Squeak'' (1978) 
*''The Way to Sattin Shore'' (1983)
*''The Little Gentleman'', illustrated by Patrick Benson (2004); US ed., illustrated by Tom Pohrt
*''A Finder's Magic'' (2008)

==Notes==
{{notelist |notes=
{{efn |name=HC |1=
Since 1995 there are usually eight books on the Carnegie shortlist.
According to CCSU some runners up through 2002 were Commended (from 1954) or Highly Commended (from 1966). There were about 160 commendations of both kinds in 49 years including five for 1955, three for 1977, three for 1978 and three for 1983 (one highly commended).
}}
{{efn |name=poll2007 |1=
Among votes cast from the UK, ''[[Northern Lights (Pullman novel)|Northern Lights]]'' polled 40%, ''Tom's Midnight Garden'' 16%; ''[[Skellig]]'' 8%. The winning author, [[Philip Pullman]], generously said: "Personally I feel they got the initials right but not the name. I don't know if the result would be the same in a hundred years' time; maybe Philippa Pearce would win then."<br>
•Ezard (2007).
}}
}}

==References==
{{reflist |25em |refs=
<ref name=medal1958>
[http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/livingarchive/title.php?id=99 (Carnegie Winner 1958)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130107093451/http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/livingarchive/title.php?id=99 |date=7 January 2013 }}. Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. [[CILIP]]. Retrieved 9 July 2012.</ref>
<ref name=topten>
[http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/celebration/top_tens.php?action=list "70 Years Celebration: Anniversary Top Tens"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161027022418/http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/celebration/top_tens.php?action=list |date=27 October 2016 }}. The CILIP Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Children's Book Awards. CILIP. Retrieved 9 July 2012.</ref>
<ref name=ccsu>
[http://web.ccsu.edu/library/nadeau/award%20books/CarnegieMedal.htm "Carnegie Medal Award"]. 2007(?). Curriculum Lab. Elihu Burritt Library. [[Central Connecticut State University]] (CCSU). Retrieved 9 July 2012.</ref>

<ref name=poll2007>
Ezard, John (21 June 2007). [https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/jun/22/books.booksnews "Pullman children's book voted best in 70 years"]. ''The Guardian''. Retrieved 18 November 2012.</ref>
}}

==External links==
{{Portal |Children's literature |Speculative fiction }} 
*{{isfdb name |4991 |Philippa Pearce}}
*[http://www.walker.co.uk/contributors/Philippa-Pearce-1575.aspx Philippa Pearce] at [[Walker Books]]
*{{LCAuth|n50000479|Philippa Pearce|42|ue}}
*[https://rsliterature.org/fellow/phillipa-pearce/ "Philippa Pearce"] (Fellows Remembered), [[The Royal Society of Literature]]
*Philippa Pearce profile on [https://sites.google.com/site/greatshelfordcommunitywebsite/home/village-people Great Shelford website] where she was born and bred

{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pearce, Philippa}}
[[Category:1920 births]]
[[Category:2006 deaths]]
[[Category:English children's writers]]
[[Category:Carnegie Medal in Literature winners]]
[[Category:Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:People educated at the Perse School for Girls]]
[[Category:People from Great Shelford]]
[[Category:Writers from Cambridgeshire]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature]]
[[Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:English women novelists]]