Antonia White
“My novels and short stories are mainly about ordinary people who become involved in rather extraordinary situations. I do not mean in sensational adventures but in rather odd and difficult personal relationships largely due to their family background and their incomplete understanding of their own natures.” – Antonia White
Antonia White was born in London March 1, 1899 in London under the name Eirine Bottling to parents Cecil and Christine Bottling. (She later took her mothers maiden name, White and Tony was a name she was known by amongst her friends.) Her father was a professor of Greek and Latin at St. Paul’s School. She was baptized a protestant and then converted catholic at age 7 because her father converted to Catholicism. She struggled with religion and did not feel that she fit in with the other catholic children. She did not find faith in the church as a child although she was educated at a catholic school, The Convent of the Sacred Heart, Roehampton.
Although she is remember as a modernist writer, she developed a terrible fear of writing after a misunderstanding when she was 15. She had been working on what was going to her first novel. It was to be a present for her father. She wanted to surprise him with a book about wicked people whose lives are changed as they discover religion. She attempted to give a detailed description of the evil characters, but, because of her lack of experience, she was unable to describe their wickedness except to say that they “Indulged in nameless vices”. This dark story was found unfinished by officials at her catholic school and she was then expelled from the school without being given the opportunity to explain her book. She describes this incident as being her most vivid and tragic memory. “My superb gift to my father was absolutely my undoing” she remarked in an interview. She did not begin writing novels again until 20 years later, when her father died.
After she left school, she attended her father’s school St. Paul’s for the next few years. She attempted to be an actress but was unsuccessful. She then wrote in magazines and worked in advertising where she earned 250 pounds a year advertising Mercolized wax. She spent nine years working as a copy writer in London and she also worked for the BBC as a translator.
She has enjoyed greater commercial success, longevity and popularity despite her reputation for writing unacceptable and bad literature. Blyton also fulfils the dictionary definition of prestigious as she has had influence, a reputation (which has shifted from good to bad) derived from passed achievements. She produced an enormous amount of writing in her career; at its height, in 1955, she produced no less than 70 works in a single year. She was a respected educationalist writing educational primers and with a weekly column in Teachers World (1923-27). It is hardly surprising that vast numbers of people have read her novels.
The theme that has been attached to this story is directly relevant to it as depicted by the anonymous letters which the main character is busy writing secretly based on gossip and distributing them to the different houses. Considering that people have an impression of her being a good woman who is quiet and peaceful, it becomes completely unbecoming that she instead engages in very abnormal behavior. What makes it even more terrible is the fact that she uses gossip as the premise for her to propagate her hate messages not only in a single household but across the many different households in the estate where she stays.
Viahos, Kelly Beucar. "Women Are Not Prepared to Serve in Combat." Gale Opposing Viewpoints, 2012. Web. 20 Mar. 2012.
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