Barbara Euphan Todd’s Followers (9)

Barbara Euphan Todd

Born

in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England, The United Kingdom

January 09, 1890

Died

February 02, 1976

Genre

Children's

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Barbara Euphan Todd was born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, the only child of Anglican minister Thomas Todd and Alice Maud Mary (née Bentham), but was brought up in the rural village of Soberton in Hampshire. She was educated at a girls' school in Guildford in Surrey. She worked as a VAD during World War I, and after her father's retirement lived with her parents in Surrey and began writing. Her early work was published in magazines such as Punch and The Spectator.

In the 1920s, she started writing books for children and collaborated with her husband Commander John Graham Bower, RN (1886–1940), whom she married in 1932. The couple moved to an artistic colony in Blewbury near Oxford, where Bower, an officer in the Royal Navy, wrote fiction a Barbara Euphan Todd was born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, the only child of Anglican minister Thomas Todd and Alice Maud Mary (née Bentham), but was brought up in the rural village of Soberton in Hampshire. She was educated at a girls' school in Guildford in Surrey. She worked as a VAD during World War I, and after her father's retirement lived with her parents in Surrey and began writing. Her early work was published in magazines such as Punch and The Spectator.

In the 1920s, she started writing books for children and collaborated with her husband Commander John Graham Bower, RN (1886–1940), whom she married in 1932. The couple moved to an artistic colony in Blewbury near Oxford, where Bower, an officer in the Royal Navy, wrote fiction and essays under the pseudonym Klaxon. As Euphan, in 1935 Todd wrote South Country Secrets and The Touchstone with her husband. In 1946, after the death of her husband in World War II, she wrote her only adult novel, Miss Ranskill Comes Home (1946), about a woman who returns to England after being stranded on a desert island during the war. It was reissued in 2003 by Persephone Books. Among other works written by Todd were folkstories adapted for radio, plays and stories written in collaboration with other writers, and two volumes of poetry, 'Hither and Thither' (1927) and 'The Seventh Daughter' (1935).

In 1936 she wrote what would become her best known-work, 'Worzel Gummidge or The Scarecrow of Scatterbrook'. The title character is a scarecrow that comes to life. She would later write nine other books featuring the character.

In the 1950s Denis and Mabel Constanduros collaborated with Todd on a series of Worzel Gummidge radio plays for children. In 1967 five Worzel Gummidge stories were narrated by Gordon Rollings in five episodes of the BBC children's serial Jackanory. Todd continued to write novels into the 1970s, but her best work was by then behind her. She died in 1976, just as negotiations were in progress for the television rights to the Worzel Gummidge books. ...more

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Barbara Euphan Todd’s books

Average rating: 3.87 · 992 ratings · 163 reviews · 42 distinct works • Similar authors

	Worzel Gummidge 3.63 avg rating — 327 ratings — published 1936 — 31 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Worzel Gummidge Again 3.96 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 1937 — 17 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Worzel Gummidge and Saucy Nancy 3.79 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 1947 — 18 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	La señorita Ranskill vuelve a casa 3.78 avg rating — 9 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Detective Worzel Gummidge 3.56 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 2008 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Worzel Gummidge Takes A Holiday 3.57 avg rating — 7 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Mr. Blossom's Shop by Barbara Euphan Todd, E.S. Duffin (Illustrator) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 1929 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Worzel Gummidge and the Treasure Ship liked it 3.00 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 1980 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	More About Worzel Gummidge by Barbara Euphan Todd, Jessica Martin (Reading) 4.25 avg rating — 4 ratings — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Worzel Gummidge and the Railway Scarecrows 2.80 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 1955 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Barbara Euphan Todd (?)

“What adventures steel suffered, tempered by fire, shrunk by water, tired by use and revived by rest, keeping its vitality for longer than a man could, whether it was worked for centuries, rested in an armoury or left to rust out its virtue at the bottom of a grave!”
― Barbara Euphan Todd, Miss Ranskill Comes Home

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“It was strange that values should make such a flashing change. ...There was not one truth but many. Was it possible for anyone to be innocent of the death of one just man?”
― Barbara Euphan Todd, Miss Ranskill Comes Home

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“What adventures steel suffered, tempered by fire, shrunk by water, tired by use and revived by rest, keeping it's vitality for longer than a man could, whether it was worked for centuries, rested in an armoury or left to rust out its virtue at the bottom of a grave!”
― Barbara Euphan Todd, Miss Ranskill Comes Home

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