Edward Blishen (1920–1996)
Author of Science Fiction Stories
About the Author
Edward Blishen was born on April 29, 1920. He was an English author and broadcaster. He may be known best for the first of two children's novels based on Greek mythology, written with Leon Garfield, and illustrated by Charles Keeping. For The God Beneath the Sea, Blishen and Garfield won the 1970 show more Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognizing the year's best children's book in England. Blishen was born in Hertfordshire, England. He died on December 13, 1996. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Edward Blishen
Junior Pears Cyclopaedia 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1920-04-12
- Date of death
- 1996-12-13
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Barnet, England, UK
- Occupations
- teacher
author
broadcaster - Short biography
- Won a scholarship to Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Barnet. His lifelong love of books was encouraged there by Spencer Vaughan-Thomas, an outstanding English teacher. Left school at 17 and worked on local newspaper in Muswell Hill.
A conscientious objector in WWII, worked on a farm.
In 1949 attended London emergency teacher training college. Was a teacher until 1959.
Broadcaster: a weekly BBC programme for young African writers; then BBC Magazine of the Arts Overseas.
part-time teaching at York University between 1963 and 1965 in the education department. Blishen devised a course built around different literary descriptions of teaching found in texts from David Copperfield to The Rainbow.
A constant and acute reviewer and editor of children's literature, - Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Whetstone, Hertfordshire, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Whetstone, Hertfordshire, England, UK
Hadley Wood, Hertfordshire, England, UK - Place of death
- Hadley Wood, Hertfordshire, England, UK
- Associated Place (for map)
- Hertfordshire, England, UK
Members
Reviews
I grew up with Bulfinch's Mythology and have always loved Greek mythology, so I was thrilled to discover and read this collection of Greek creation myths of both gods and man, written in modern language for young people. These were the CREATION myths, as opposed to the HEROIC. The tales were fleshed out, starting with the birth of Hephaestus, the ugly son of Zeus and Hera, and how the other gods came to be and why they became gods of a particular thing. Then the book progressed to the show more titans, the war between gods and titans, the creation of man. More extensive than Bulfinch were the stories of Deucalion and the Flood, Demeter and Persephone, Pandora, Sisyphus, and finally the rape of Anticleia and birth of her son, Odysseus, growing up on rocky Ithaca. Apollo and Poseidon build the city of Troy; Anticleia's father writes her: "Perhaps, when he is a grown man, my grandson Odysseus will visit it."
Imaginative retellings in today's language and how one event led to another. The creative line drawings, by design not copies of ancient Greek ceramics, added much. Highly recommended. I certainly see how this book won the Carnegie Medal. show less
Imaginative retellings in today's language and how one event led to another. The creative line drawings, by design not copies of ancient Greek ceramics, added much. Highly recommended. I certainly see how this book won the Carnegie Medal. show less
More gentle deprecating yet laugh-out-loud humour from Blishen. He has a genius for bringing out the ridiculous yet poignant aspects of any human situation, in this case working on the land as a conscientious objector during the war. "Cack-handed" means literally left-handed, but in this case probably means clumsy and awkward.
The last of Blishen's funny, diffident observations on life, published posthumously. There are humorous intimations of demise as various bits of him don't work as well as they did, but maybe even he didn't expect to go so soon after he'd completed the book. He was 76, and had been quietly entertaining those of us who loved his gentle style for well over forty years, so it's a melancholy but happy read.
More gentle, self-deprecating yet very funny memoirs from Blishen. This time, his life as an educational pundit, something he finds hard to believe. Of particular interest are the scraps of letters he quotes, written by his great great uncle from the front line of the Crimean War.
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Statistics
- Works
- 44
- Also by
- 3
- Members
- 1,522
- Popularity
- #16,892
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 15
- ISBNs
- 145
- Languages
- 6
- Favorited
- 2