Leonora Blanche Alleyne facts for kids

Leonora Blanche "Nora" Lang (born March 8, 1851 – died July 10, 1933) was an English writer, editor, and translator. She is most famous for her work on The Fairy Books. These were a series of 25 collections of folk and fairy tales for children. She published them with her husband, Andrew Lang, between 1889 and 1913. The most well-known are the Rainbow Fairy Books. This series had twelve collections, each named after a different color.

Nora Lang's Early Life and Family

Nora Lang was born on March 8, 1851, in Clifton, Bristol. She was the youngest daughter and seventh child of Charles Thomas Alleyne. Her father owned a plantation in Barbados. Her mother was Margaret.

Nora described her childhood as "sternly repressed." This means her much older parents were very strict. She had a "usual desultory education" at a fancy school in Clifton. Later, she met her husband, the Scottish writer Andrew Lang.

Marriage and London Life

Nora married Andrew Lang on April 13, 1875, in Clifton. Andrew had to leave his fellowship at Merton College, Oxford to marry her. This was because the college had already allowed its quota of tutors to marry. After their marriage, they lived and worked in Kensington, London.

The young couple quickly became part of the literary and artistic groups in London and Edinburgh. Among their close friends were the Earl and Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne. These were the parents of Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. Lady Elizabeth later became the mother of the future Queen Elizabeth II. Years later, Elizabeth, Duchess of York allowed Nora to dedicate a reprint of Andrew Lang's The Chronicles of Pantouflia to the young Princess Elizabeth.

Creating the Fairy Books

Many people incorrectly think that Nora Lang's husband, Andrew, wrote and translated all of the Coloured Fairy Books by himself. However, this is not true. Literary critic Anita Silvey noted that Andrew Lang is best known for books he "did not write."

Nora's name is not on the front cover of any of the Coloured Fairy Books. They all say Andrew was the editor. But Andrew himself said in a preface to The Lilac Fairy Book (1910) that "The fairy books have been almost wholly the work of Mrs. Lang." He explained that she translated and adapted them from French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, and other languages.

Nora's Important Role

Even though Andrew is often given credit for choosing the stories, Nora did most of the work. She and a team of other writers, mostly women, translated these stories into English. They also changed them to fit the ideas of proper behavior during the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

Nora's help was first mentioned in The Green Fairy Book. This was the third book in the series. From then on, she wrote most of the retellings. She was usually credited as "Mrs. Lang." Other story collections published from 1908 to 1912 were also credited to "Mrs. Lang." Examples include The Red Book of Heroes (1909) and The Book of Saints and Heroes (1912).

Popularity of the Series

Originally, the Langs only planned to publish one collection of fairy stories. The first was The Blue Fairy Book, published in 1889. But each book became so popular that they kept publishing more.

Before the Langs' books, some critics and educators thought fairy tales were harmful for young readers. They believed these stories were too unreal, brutal, or encouraged escapism. They also thought such stories were not serious enough for adults. The Langs' collections greatly changed this public view. They helped people see fairy stories as suitable for children and worthy of study.

Influence on Other Writers

The Fairy Books have influenced many writers since they were published. Other children's authors, like E. Nesbit, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, and Arthur Conan Doyle, were inspired by the Langs' books.

J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, wrote about the books. He said that in English, "none probably rival either the popularity, or the inclusiveness, or the general merits of the twelve books of twelve colours which we owe to Andrew Lang and to his wife."

Booker prize-winning novelist Margaret Atwood also read Lang's books. She remembers reading them with "wonder at the age of ten." Her own work often re-imagines fairy stories.

Other Works by Nora Lang

Nora Lang also wrote other books. These include a history of Russia, which she translated from a French book by Alfred Rambaud (1879). She also wrote a novel called Dissolving Views, published in 1884. She often wrote reviews for magazines like the Saturday Review and the Academy.

Nora Lang's Later Life

After her husband died in 1912, Nora Lang moved to a flat in Cheniston Gardens. She learned Russian. She used this skill to talk with Russian soldiers in British hospitals and camps after the First World War and the Russian Revolution.

Nora Lang died on July 10, 1933, in Kensington. She left her family's money to her niece, Thyra Blanche Alleyne. Thyra was the daughter of Nora's brother, Forster McGeachy Alleyne.

Images for kids

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  The Green Fairy Book (1902)