Elizabeth Goudge

Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge
Born	Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge 24 April 1900(1900-04-24) Wells, England, UK
Died	1 April 1984(1984-04-01) (aged 83)
Pen name	Elizabeth Goudge
Occupation	writer
Nationality	British
Period	1934-1978
Genres	Children's literature, romance
Notable work(s)	The Little White Horse, Green Dolphin Street

Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge (b. 24 April 1900 in Wells, England – d. 1 April 1984) was an English author of novels, short stories and children's books as Elizabeth Goudge. A best-selling author in the UK and the US from the 1930s through the 1970s, her books gained renewed media attention when her book, The Rosemary Tree was plagiarized as Crane's Morning by Indrani Aikath-Gyaltsen in 1993, and received rave reviews in both the New York Times and the Washington Post. Elizabeth Goudge was a former vice-president of the Romantic Novelists' Association.

Biography

Elizabeth de Beauchamp Goudge was born on 24 April 1900 in the cathedral city of Wells, where her father, Henry Leighton Goudge, was vice-principal of the Theological College. The family moved to Ely when he became principal of the Theological College there and then to Christ Church, Oxford when he was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at the University. Elizabeth was educated at Grassendale School, Southbourne (1914–18), and at the art school at University College Reading, then an extension college of Christ Church. She went on to teach design and handicrafts in Ely and Oxford.

Goudge's first book, The Fairies' Baby and Other Stories (1919), was a failure and it was several years before she authored her first novel, Island Magic (1934), which was an immediate success. It was based on Channel Island stories, many of which she had learned from her mother, a native of Guernsey. Elizabeth herself regularly visited Guernsey as a child, recounting in her autobiography The Joy of the Snow spending many of her summers with her maternal grandparents and relatives.

The Little White Horse (1946) was Goudge's own favourite among her works, and also the book which J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter stories, has said was her favorite as a child. The television mini-series Moonacre and the 2009 film The Secret of Moonacre were based on The Little White Horse. Her Green Dolphin Country (1944) was made into a film (under its American title, Green Dolphin Street) which won the Academy Award for Special Effects in 1948.

After her father's death in 1939, Goudge moved to a bungalow in Devon, where she nursed her ailing mother. After her mother's death in 1951, she moved to Oxfordshire, spending the last 30 years of her life living at a cottage on Peppard Common, just outside Henley-on-Thames, where a blue plaque was unveiled in 2008.

She died on 1 April 1984.

Plagiarism victim

In 1993, a new novel, Crane's Morning by Indrani Aikath-Gyaltsen was published and enthusiastically reviewed by the New York Times and the Washington Post. "Exquisite," wrote Paul Kafka of the Washington Post, adding that the story "is at once achingly familiar and breathtakingly new. {The author} believes we all live in one borderless culture." The source of Aikath-Gyaltsen's plagiarism was The Rosemary Tree, Goudge's tale of a Devonshire vicar, his wife and hard life choices they face and overcome. When it was first published in 1956, the New York Times Book Review criticized its "slight plot" and "sentimentally ecstatic" approach. After Aikath-Gyaltsen recast the setting to an Indian village, changing the names and switching the religion to Hindu but often keeping the story word-for-word the same, it received better notices. In February 1993, the Times called it "magic" and "full of humour and insight," although it conceded that the "deliberately old-fashioned" style "sometimes verges on the sentimental." Sadly, after the plagiarism was uncovered, Indrani Aikath-Gyaltsen committed suicide. Paul Kafka, a novelist himself, commented about his review of the plagiarism in the Washington Post that now "there's a phrase `aesthetic affirmative action.' If something comes from exotic parts, it's read very differently than if it's domestically grown." He further stated that the book is "pretty delightful. Maybe Elizabeth Goudge is a writer who hasn't gotten her due."

Themes in her Writings

Goudge's books are notably Christian in outlook, containing such themes as sacrifice, conversion, discipline, healing, and growth through suffering. Her novels, whether realistic, fantasy, or historical, interweave legend and myth and reflect her spirituality and her deep love of England. Whether written for adults or children, the same qualities pervade Goudge's work and are the source of its appeal to readers.

Awards and honours

• Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, 1945.
• Carnegie Medal 1947 for The Little White Horse.
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Annual Novel Award, 1944, for Green Dolphin Country.

Bibliography

City of Bells series

• A City of Bells (1936)
• Towers in the Mist (1938)
• The Dean's Watch (1960)
• Three Cities of Bells (omnibus) (1965)

Eliots of Damerosehay series

• The Bird in the Tree (1940)
• The Herb of Grace (1948) aka Pilgrim's Inn (1948 )
• The Heart of the Family (1953)
• The Eliots of Damerosehay (omnibus) (1957)

Novels

• Island Magic (1934)
• The Middle Window (1935)
• The Castle on the Hill (1941)
• Green Dolphin Country (1944) aka Green Dolphin Street (USA title)
• Gentian Hill (1949)
• The Rosemary Tree (1956)
• The White Witch (1958)
• The Scent of Water (1963)
• The Child From the Sea (1970)

Children's books

• Sister of the Angels: A Christmas Story (1939)
• Smoky-House (1940)
• The Well of the Star (1941)
• Henrietta's House (1942) aka The Blue Hills
• The Little White Horse (1946)
• Make-Believe (1949)
• The Valley of Song (1951)
• Linnets and Valerians (1964) aka The Runaways
• I Saw Three Ships (1969)

Collections

• The Fairies' Baby: And Other Stories (1919)
• A Pedlar's Pack: And Other Stories (1937)
• Three Plays: Suomi, The Brontës of Haworth, Fanny Burney (1939)
• The Golden Skylark: And Other Stories (1941)
• The Ikon on the Wall: And Other Stories (1943)
• The Elizabeth Goudge Reader (1946)
• Songs and Verses (1947)
• At the Sign of the Dolphin (1947)
• The Reward of Faith: And Other Stories (1950)
• White Wings: Collected Short Stories (1952)
• The Ten Gifts: An Elizabeth Goudge Anthology (1965)
• A Christmas Book: An Anthology of Christmas Stories (1967)
• The Lost Angel: Stories (1971)
• Hampshire Trilogy (omnibus) (1976)
• Pattern of People: An Elizabeth Goudge Anthology (1978)

Non fiction

• God So Loved the World: The Story of Jesus (1951)
• Saint Francis of Assisi (1959) aka My God and My All: The Life of St. Francis of Assisi
• A Diary of Prayer (1966)
• The Joy of the Snow: An Autobiography (1974)

Anthologies edited by Elizabeth Goudge

• A Book of Comfort: An Anthology (1964)
• A Book of Peace: An Anthology (1967)
• A Book of Faith: An Anthology (1976)

Anthologies containing stories by Elizabeth Goudge

• Dancing with the Dark (1997)

Short stories

• ESP (1974)

External links

• [1] The Elizabeth Goudge Society
• [2] Elizabeth Goudge books and discussion forum
• [3] Link to Washington Post 1994 article about plagiarism, byline by Molly Moore