E. Nesbit is another classic of the genre that should be on your list!
Not all, but a lot of the British works we are talking about were published after WWI. Just something to throw out for discussion - I wonder how much the direct impact of the war influenced the appeal of fantasy literature. It was harrowing, and I don’t think Americans felt that as much, being geographically isolated from the war. If this was a factor, it could also support the continued appeal of some of the earlier titles as well.
heh…Half-Magic was based on E. Nesbit’s The Story of the Amulet. It’s been a very long time since I read it, but I believe Eager did reference The Story of the Amulet.
That reminds me of something I heard this week. London Boulevard is sort of a hybrid gangster movie. It was filmed in the UK with a British cast but it was written and directed by an American, William Monahan. Monahan pointed out a difference between American and British gangster movies. He said the American gangsters movies tend to be about guys at the top of the gang while British gangster movies tend to be about guys at the bottom of the gang.
Has Rudyard Kipling been mentioned yet? He was certainly a great British fantasist, although he grew up in India and also did some writing in the U.S. I’m not sure where he wrote *The Jungle Books. *
Lucy Boston should be listed as a great British fantasy writer too, IMHO, for her Green Knowe books.
As far as Americans go, Natalie Babbitt should be mentioned for her wonderful fantasies The Search for Delicious and Tuck Everlasting.
Missed the edit window, but two other British fantasists who also wrote/write for children (and should be mentioned) are Richard Adams (Watership Down) and Terry Pratchett.
I snipped most of your list, and I haven’t bothered to check any of the others, but this jumped out: Lynne Reid Banks isn’t American. (Nor are Neil Gaiman or Susan Cooper, of course, but I suppose you’re entitled to your opinion on that.)
> I snipped most of your list, and I haven’t bothered to check any of the others,
> but this jumped out: Lynne Reid Banks isn’t American. (Nor are Neil Gaiman or
> Susan Cooper, of course, but I suppose you’re entitled to your opinion on that.)
I could have sworn that I carefully checked each of the authors to make sure what their nationality was, but somehow I missed that one. My apologies. Gaiman and Cooper have spent most of their adult life in the U.S. How long do you think that it takes for an author to become an American? Is Tolkien South African because he was born there? Does Frances Hodgson Burnett count as American, British, or French?
In my opinion, where an author has grown up makes up a big part of their identity, sensibility, and point of view—especially if they write for children.
So what’s the oldest that an author can be when he leaves the country where he was born before you consider his main influence to be the country where he spent most of his life rather than the one where he was born?
One simple criterion is where the author sets their stories. Cooper, for instance, apparently considered England to be a more appropriate setting for fantasy than the US.
As I said, you’re entitled to your opinion. It wouldn’t be my opinion that those authors are American. My brother has now spent most of his adult life in America, has an American wife and American children, etc., but he’s not American either. And he doesn’t write children’s books about the place where he spent his formative years.
Also (and with apologies for posting twice, but it was a slow thought) the fact that both those writers, and my brother, only went to America because they were in a relationship which required it, seems to me to make a difference to how “American” they are.
Chronos, Lloyd Anderson set his stories in Wales, despite the fact that he only lived there for a few months while a soldier. The rest of his life was spent in the U.S. except for a year or so studying in Paris and a few months in Germany as a soldier. Does that make him Welsh? Or are you saying that anyone was born in the U.K., no matter how briefly they lived there, who ever set any stories there, should be considered British?
And what about Frances Hodgson Burnett, who lived in the U.K. till she was sixteen? She then lived in Tennessee for eight years. Then she lived in Paris for two years. Then she lived in Washington, D.C. for fifteen years, where she began her writing career. Then she lived in the U.K. for nine years. Then she lived on Long Island for the last seventeen years of her life. I’d say that everywhere a person has ever lived is relevant. (Should I ever write a novel, I’d say that the twenty-three years in Ohio, and the three years in Florida, and the three years in Texas, and the three years in England, and the twenty-eight-and-a-half years in Maryland are all relevant.) And I’d say that none of us is qualified to say why a writer chose to move somewhere. You don’t know that the only reason was because of a relationship.
Fine. Like I said, you’re entitled to your opinion. I’m also entitled to mine. And since we’re all about statistics, your summary of Frances Hodgson Burnett ignores her frequent and lengthy stays in Britain (one of which lasted two years) during the fifteen years you have her living in Washington.
The ‘hard boiled detective’ is a specific genre and specifically American. There is no ‘hard boiled’ genre such as you imply. British mystery writers have have detectives–Christie, Sayers, Doyle, etc,. but not the hard boiled detective: that is a uniquely American genre. Arthur Conan Doyle did not create the mystory story, Edgar Allan Poe did. British spy novels are not the equivalent of American private eye stories. There is no correlation in literary terms. Americans didn’t copy everything British. What a ridiculous thing to claim. Anyway, spy novels, fantasy novels, science fiction, etc., these are are formulaic, popular fiction. Serious literature is a very different thing, and most certainly, what American authors have done is definitely not a copy of what the British have done. There isn’t a competition about it. There isn’t a hierarchy of which country is better. The important, serious authors from all countries, be they English speaking countries or otherwise, stand on their own.
There’s certainly a lot of bad fantasy and SF out there that are formulaic stories. There’s also a lot of good fantasy and SF which is anything but formulaic. I generally don’t read spy novels, so I don’t have an opinion one way or the other. Since you have stated that you don’t read fantasy and SF, you probably should avoid declaring that those genres are formulaic.
I think that you can find examples of formula stories in any genre. Certainly, the publishers reward SF and fantasy writers who will write clones of the latest popular books, and the writers who dare to write something that’s not formula will have a much harder time getting their books published by non-vanity presses.
Personally, if I never come across another vampire/lycanthrope/“normal” human female love triangle, it will be too soon. But a few of these books have been very successful, so publishers are looking for more books that follow this formula, and they aren’t picky about quality, just quantity.