The House of Secrets

Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1964, 1963. First Edition (presumed; no prior editions or printings cited). 190 pages illustrations 21 cm. Originally published in London in 1963 under title: The secret passage. Very good(+) in very good(-) jacket with small edge tear & chip to rear bottom; now in archival mylar. Personal bookplate, minor foxing. Hardcover.

Three children living with their aunt in an Engiish seaside town discover a secret passageway into the empty house next door. English novelist and children’s writer, born Nina Mary Mabey (1925-2012) in Ilford, Essex. Evacuated to Wales as a child in wartime, the experience behind Carrie’s War, published in 1973, her best-known book and a Phoenix Award winner in 1993. Read Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Somerville College, Oxford. Author of 48 books for adults and children, many of them about children seeing through the evasions of adults. The Peppermint Pig (1975) grew from stories from her mother and grandmother of growing up in Norfolk in the nineteenth century and took the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987 for Circles of Deceit, one of her novels for adult readers, but lost out to Penelope Lively’s Moon Tiger. The Birds on the Trees (1970) was later shortlisted for the Lost Man Booker. One of very few who have both served as a Booker judge and made a Booker shortlist as an author. Seriously injured in the 2002 Potters Bar rail crash, which killed her husband, Austen Kark. Afterwards she campaigned on rail safety, and the crash is the subject of Dear Austen (2005). Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL) and Justice of the Peace (JP). In 2004, she was awarded the Golden PEN Award by English PEN for “a Lifetime’s Distinguished Service to Literature”. Her publisher said she was writing days before she died.Bawden, Nina, 1925-2012. Grades 5-7. Adventure and adventurers. History. Time: 1900-1999 Geographic: Great Britain -- History -- 20th century -- Fiction. Grande-Bretagne -- Histoire -- 20e siècle -- Romans, nouvelles, etc. Great Britain.