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Editor of
The Private Diaries of Alison Uttley

For many of us, Alison Uttley is the greatly loved and revered author of childhood classics such as Little Grey Rabbit, A Traveller in Time and Sam Pig, as well as her popular country-based books for adults, including The Country Child. But her private diaries from 1932-71 reveal a darker, more complex side to the famous storyteller. Judd has skilfully edited her and six million words to record an almost 40-year period inone volume, retaining their true spirit in an entrancing but often surprising read. Alison Uttley's diary entries are beautifully written and revealing, often returning to her fondly remembered childhood in rural Derbyshire. Showing at first her excitement when, as a grieving widow following her husband's suicide, she supported her only child, John, with her royalties from her new role as an author, she ends the story as a grande dame of literature, acclaimed but never entirely content. She also wrote about her dreams and belief in her psychic abilities, as well as expressing a deep, almost unnatural love for her son. In the pages of the diaries, Alison's self-obsession and delusions mingle with her stout belief in her characters and books. She records her frustration with publishers, writes beautiful descriptions of the world outside her windows, especially the countryside, expresses her idiosyncratic views on life and culture, and spells out the realities of her early financial struggles.

One of the most fascinating features of the diaries is her relationship with fellow authors and with her main illustrator, Margaret Tempest whom she detested. Whilst Alison adored Walter de la Mare and other father figures, including her old professor Manchester University, she abhorred many females, including her near neighbour, Enid Blyton, whom she called a 'vulgar, curled woman' and whose success provoked her envy and dislike.

This is a must-read book for anyone interested in Alison Uttley, her writings, the complexities of her life and the tumultuous times in which she lived.

Judd meticulously studied Alison Uttley's private diaries to reveal the best-selling prolific and popular author in all her complexities, as a writer, countrywoman, businesswoman, friend, widow and mother. Uttley was also someone whose rivalrous, passionate nature often clouded her judgement and drastically affected her professional life. These edited diaries reveal an extraordinary story, as well as providing a vivid historical record of British life over four decades, and a rich insight into the creative process of a best-selling author who was also an often difficult and troubled person.

These Private Diaries are the product of an extraordinary feat of editing which few could have undertaken with such enthusiasm and inside knowledge. The result is a truly spellbinding book.

Reviews

"The Diaries, edited by her biographer Denis Judd, are more Stephen King than Good Housekeeping….The opening entry…reads as though we have strayed into Dorothy Wordsworth’s journals….[Alison Uttley] died in 1976 – ‘a born storyteller’ her obituary said – and John [her son] killed himself two years later. You couldn’t make it up."
- Frances Wilson, Sunday Times

"Unquestionably gifted as a writer, her edited diaries bear witness to her prodigious literary output, her appreciation of nature lyrically described and her heart-warming nostalgia for her idyllic rural childhood in the [Derbyshire] Peak District. Also rather thrillingly they reveal her to be a bit of a monster….Denis Judd [is] the heroic editor of these previously unpublished diaries, (39 packed volumes ranging from 1932 to 1971)."
- Carla Mackay, Daily Mail

"She created the enduringly charming children’s characters Little Grey Rabbit and Fuzzypeg the Hedgehog but the private diaries of Alison Uttley reveal the author to have been a difficult controlling woman who despised many people including her [Beaconsfield] neighbour Enid Blyton whom she called a ‘vulgar, curled woman’."
- Alison Flood, Guardian On-Line