Once on a Time

by Alice Dalgliesh (Editor), Katherine Milhous (Illustrator)

The stories for this collection were selected by Alice Dalgliesh and Katherine Milhous from various sources: The Pancake (Scandinavian); The turnip (Russian); The husband who was to mind the house (Scandinavian); The three little pigs (English); Master of all masters (English); The straw ox (Russian); Teremok (Russian); The elves (German); Sweet Porridge (German); The trusting lad (French); The three wishes (English); The three billy goats gruff (Scandinavian); Giacco and his bean (Italian); The three bears (English); Why arrows have feathers (American Indian).

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

Family: Born in Trinidad, British West Indies; naturalized U.S. citizen; died in Woodbury, CT; daughter of John and Alice (Haynes) Dalgliesh.

Educator, editor, book reviewer, and author, Dalgliesh was an elementary school teacher for nearly seventeen years, and later taught a course in children's literature at Columbia University. From 1934 to 1960 she served as children's book editor for Charles Scribner's Sons. In addition to her book reviews for such magazines as Saturday Review of Literature and Parents' Magazine, Dalgliesh wrote more than forty books for children (most illustrated by Katherine Milhous) and about children's literature.

She received a BA from Columbia University and taught at elementary schools for a while before writing her first book, A Happy School Year, in 1924. Among her books are Newbery Honor books The Silver Pencil (1944), The Bears on Hemlock Mountain (1952), and The Courage of Sarah Noble (1954). The writer Robert Heinlein and Dalgliesh, Heinlein's editor at Scribner's, had conflict in the 1950s. This was revealed in letters published in "Grumbles from the Grave" by Virginia Heinlein.