Farjeon, Eleanor
Farjeon, Eleanor (1881–1965),English poet and author. Chiefly remembered for her stories for children, she began her literary career with a collection of fairy stories for adults, Martin Pippin in the Apple‐Orchard (1921). (This was later reissued for children and was popular with adolescent girls.) Martin Pippin is a minstrel who helps a lovesick youth to regain his captive sweetheart. She is guarded by six milkmaids, one of whom he bribes each day with a tale. These gently romantic love stories all have a Sussex setting and were written during World War I for a young soldier from Sussex. Her next novel, The Soul of Kol Nikon (1923) was very different. A bleak, even savage story, it is set in a Scandinavian village in some unspecified folkloristic age. Kol Nikon is convinced from early childhood that he is a changeling, born without a soul, and that his mother's true child has been stolen by the Hill People. Loathed by his...
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