Mabel Esther Allan (11 February 1915 – 14 May 1998) was a British author of about 170 children's books.

Biography

Mabel Esther Allan was born at Wallasey on the Wirral Peninsula in Cheshire (now Merseyside). She decided to be an author at the age of eight; her father bought her a writing desk and taught her how to type. When the family moved, Allan was given a study in which to write. Her eyesight was poor, which her parents 'took...very badly and wrongly'. It was such a taboo subject that she never discussed it with anyone until she was almost thirty, when it spontaneously improved. Her eyesight was the reason she disliked school. She published a few short stories in the 1930s, and had longer submissions accepted, but her activities were interrupted by the Second World War. Allan served in the Women's Land Army and taught at a crowded school in Liverpool. In 1945 she sent the manuscript of The Glen Castle Mystery to her publisher, and this first book was published in 1948. Like L.M. Montgomery's characters, she began writing her books with a 'Flash': a sense of possessing a landscape for a story. 'It was the basis of all my writing', she commented in a 2006 foreword to Chiltern Adventure.

Work

Although Allan, like many authors of the era, often used the school-book genre, she was a proponent of A.S. Neill, founder of an educational philosophy which promoted freedom and self-discipline in childhood. Most of her fictional schools, significantly, were co-educational. Her books include adventure stories, mysteries, stories about families and local communities, school stories and ballet stories. She wrote for various ages and her books did not follow a "settled pattern." Her ballet stories include the Drina series and the Ballet Family series written under the pen-name Jean Estoril. She also wrote under the pen-names Priscilla Hagon and Anne Pilgrim. Most of her books were standalones but she did pen a few series, such as two series about groups of modern city children: the Wood Street Gang from Liverpool and the boys and girls of Almond House flats who attend Pine Street School.

Selected books

Dundonay House Series

Wood Street Series

Pine Street Series

Crumble Lane Series

Drina Series – as Jean Estoril

The Drina Books are a series of novels about a young girl who wishes to be a ballerina. Drina lost both her parents at a very young age and lives with her grandparents. Her mother was a prima ballerina, but Drina's grandmother blames ballet for the death of her daughter and hence dissuades Drina from dancing. However, in the second book Drina gets her wish and goes to the fictional Dominick Ballet School at Red Lion Square, London.

The Ballet Family

Single Title