Tom's Midnight Garden
| Tom's Midnight Garden | |
|---|---|
 Classic UK edition cover by Susan Einzig, thought to be original 1st edition |
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| Author(s) | Philippa Pearce |
| Illustrator | Susan Einzig |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Children's, Adventure Novel |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Publication date | 31 December 1958 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 232 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-19-271128-8 (first edition, hardback) |
| OCLC Number | 11154026 |
Tom's Midnight Garden is a children's novel by Philippa Pearce. It won the Carnegie Medal in 1958, the year of its publication. It has been adapted for radio, television, the cinema, and the stage.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
When Tom Long's brother Peter gets measles, Tom is sent to stay with his Uncle Alan and Aunt Gwen in a flat with no garden and an elderly and reclusive landlady, Mrs Bartholomew, living upstairs. Because he may be infectious he is not allowed out to play, and feels lonely. Without exercise he is less sleepy at night and when he hears the communal grandfather clock strangely strike 13, he investigates and finds the small back yard is now a large sunlit garden. Here he meets another lonely child called Hatty, who seems to be the only one who can see him. They have adventures which he gradually realises are taking place in the 19th century. And each night when Tom visits, Hatty is a different age, chronologically out of sequence.
[edit] Themes and literary significance
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The book is regarded as classic, but it also has overtones that permeate other areas of Pearce's work. We remain in doubt for a while as to who exactly is the ghost; there are questions over the nature of time and reality; and we end up believing that the midnight garden is in fact a projection from the mind of an old lady. These time/space questions occur in other of her books, especially those dealing with ghosts. The final reconciliation between Tom, still a child, and the elderly Hatty is, many have argued, one of the most moving moments in children's fiction.[1]
Writing in the 1983 edition of his Written for Children, John Rowe Townsend stated "If I were asked to name a single masterpiece of English children's literature since [the Second World War] ... it would be this outstandingly beautiful and absorbing book."[2]
Researcher Ward Bradley criticized the book for "romanticising the world of the 19th Century aristocratic mansions, making it a glittering 'lost paradise' contrasted with the drab reality of contemporary lower middle class Britain.(...) A child deriving an image of Victorian England from this engaging and well-written fairy tale would get no idea of the crushing poverty in the factories and slums from where mansion owners often derived their wealth" [3]
Time slip became a popular device in British children's novels in that period. Other successful examples include Alison Uttley's A Traveller in Time (1939, slipping back to the period of Mary, Queen of Scots), Ronald Welch's The Gauntlet (1951, slipping back to the Welsh Marches in the fourteenth century), Barbara Sleigh's Jessamy (1967, back to the First World War), and Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer (1969, back to 1918).
[edit] Allusions
The historical part of the book is set in the grounds of a mansion, which in many details resembles the real house in which the author grew up: the Mill House in Great Shelford, near Cambridge, England. Cambridge is represented in fictional form as Castleford throughout the book. At the time she was writing the book, the author was again living in Great Shelford, just across the road from the Mill House.[1] The Kitsons' house is thought to be based on a house in Cambridge, near where Pearce studied during her time at university.[4]
The theories of time of which the novel makes use derive in part from J. W. Dunne's influential 1927 work An Experiment with Time, which also inspired others, including J. B. Priestley.
[edit] Awards and nominations
The novel won the prestigious Carnegie Medal in 1958. In 2007 it was selected by judges of the CILIP Carnegie Medal for children's literature as one of the ten most important children's novels of the past 70 years.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
- Dramatized by the BBC three times, in 1968, 1974, and 1988 (which aired in 1989).
- 1999 Full-length movie starring Anthony Way
- 2001 Adapted for the stage by David Wood
[edit] Release details
- 1958, UK, Oxford University Press (ISBN 0-19-271128-8), Pub date: 31 December 1958, hardback (First edition)
- 1992, UK, HarperCollins (ISBN 0-397-30477-3), Pub date: 1 February 1992, hardback
- 2001, Adapted for the stage by David Wood, Samuel French (ISBN 0-573-05127-5)
[edit] References
- ^ a b Tucker, Nicholas (23 December 2006). "Philippa Pearce (obituary)". The Independent. http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article2097792.ece. Retrieved 2006-12-27.
- ^ Townsend, John Rowe (1983). Written for Children (2nd ed.). Lippincott. p. 247. ISBN 0397320523. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=Imy5AAAAIAAJ&q=single-masterpiece-of-English+intitle:%22Written+for+Children%22+inauthor:%22john+rowe+townsend%22&dq=single-masterpiece-of-English+intitle:%22Written+for+Children%22+inauthor:%22john+rowe+townsend%22&hl=en&ei=QU67TZfrI4uMvQOG_q3bBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CFQQ6AEwAA.
- ^ Ward D. Bradley, "Literary Depictions of Victorian Britain", p. 87, 115
- ^ Varsity, Issue Number 689
[edit] Further reading
- 2007 ISBN 9780141319995)
[edit] External links
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by A Grass Rope |
Carnegie Medal recipient 1958 |
Succeeded by The Lantern Bearers |
