Getting lost in a book: The gnomes and the reader in BB'sLittle Grey Men novels

Abstract

“BB” is the pseudonym of the English writer and naturalist Denys James Watkins-Pitchford. He was born in Lamport, Northamptonshire, in 1905 (his father was Rector of this small village), and he still lives in the county. He was educated privately and studied art both in Paris and at the Royal College of Art in London. His accomplished drawings and scraper-board illustrations are a feature of his books. BB's adult and children's books are marked by his extensive knowledge and love of the English countryside; Wild Lone(1938), the story of a fox in the fox-hunting country of Northamptonshire, and Manka(1939), which traces the life of a wild goose, were followed in 1942 by The Little Grey Men,which won the Library Association Carnegie Medal. Its sequel, The Little Grey Men Go Down the Bright Stream,was published in 1948. After seventeen years as Art Master at Rugby School, BB became a freelance author and illustrator in 1947. His autobiography, A Child Alone(1978) is only one of a number of more recent books which show him still writing, as evocatively and penetratingly as ever.