Mollie Hunter

Maureen Mollie Hunter McIlwraith, more commonly known as Mollie Hunter (30 June 1922 – 31 July 2012)[1] was a Scottish writer. She wrote fantasy for children, historical stories for young adults and realistic novels for adults. Many of her works are inspired by Scottish history, or by Scottish/Irish folklore with elements of magic and fantasy.

Born and raised near Edinburgh in the small village of Longniddry, her final years were spent in Inverness.[2] A portrait of her hangs in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.[3]

Hunter's debut was Patrick Kentigern Keenan, published by Blackie and Sons in 1963 with illustrations by Charles Keeping.[4][5] In the U.S. it was published in 1963 as The Smartest Man in Ireland.

Awards

For The Stronghold Mollie Hunter won the 1974 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject.[6] The same novel, published in The Netherlands as "Een toren tegen de romeinen" won the "Zilveren Griffel" (Silver Pen) award in 1978 for children's writing.

She won the Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association in 1992, recognising A Sound of Chariots (1972) as the best children's book published twenty years earlier that did not win a major award.[7]

The Oxford English Dictionary credits Hunter with a quotation regarding the word consensus: "No single group has the right to ignore a consensus of thoughtful opinion"[8]

Works

Novels

  • Patrick Kentigern Keenan (1963)
US title, The Smartest Man in Ireland
  • The Spanish Letters (1964)
  • The Kelpie's Pearls (1964)
  • A Pistol in Greenyards (1965)
  • The Ghosts of Glencoe (1966)
  • Thomas and the Warlock (1967)
  • Ferlie (1968)
  • The Walking Stones (1970)[lower-alpha 1]
US title, Bodach
  • The Third Resistance (1971)
  • The Lothian Run (1971)
  • The Thirteenth Member (1971)[lower-alpha 1]
  • The Haunted Mountain (1972)
  • A Sound of Chariots (Harper & Row, 1972)
  • The Stronghold (Hamilton, 1974)
  • A Stranger Came Ashore (Hamilton, 1975)[lower-alpha 1]
  • The Wicked One (1977)[lower-alpha 1]
  • The Third Eye (1979)
  • You Never Knew Her as I Did! (1981)
  • The Dragonfly Years (1983)
  • The Knight of the Golden Plain (1983)
  • Hold on to Love (1984)
  • The Enchanted Whistle (1985)
  • I'll Go My Own Way (1985)
  • Cat, Herself (1986)
  • The Mermaid Summer (1988)
  • The MidSummer Murders (1988)
  • The King's Swift Rider: a novel on Robert the Bruce (1998)
  • Escape from Loch Leven (2003)

Collections

  • A Furl of Fairy Wind (1977)

Plays

  • Stay for an Answer (1962)
  • The Captain
  • A Love-song For My Lady
  • The Walking Stones

Picture Books

  • Hi Johnny (1963)
  • The Brownie (1986), illus. Mahri Christopherson
  • The Enchanted Boy (1986), illus. Christopherson
  • Flora MacDonald and Bonnie Prince Charlie (1988), illus. Chris Molan
  • Gilly Martin the Fox (1994), illus. Dennis McDermott

Nonfiction

  • Talent Is Not Enough: Mollie Hunter on writing for children (1976)
  • The Pied Piper Syndrome and other essays (1992)

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 WorldCat libraries have catalogued at least four of her books with the subtitle "a story of suspense": A Stranger Came Ashore, The Wicked One, The Walking Stones, and The 13th Member.

References

  1. Published on Tuesday 7 August 2012 00:00. "Obituary: Mollie Hunter (McIlwraith), writer - Obituaries". Scotsman.com. Retrieved 2012-08-07.
  2. The Wee Web: Authors and Illustrators archive: Mollie Hunter biography
  3. National Galleries Scotland: Mollie Hunter
  4. "Formats and editions of Patrick Kentigern Keenan". WorldCat. Retrieved 2013-03-05.
  5. Patrick Kentigern Keenan, Blackie 1963
  6. (Carnegie Winner 1974). Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. CILIP. Retrieved 2012-08-17.
  7. "Phoenix Award Brochure 2012". Children's Literature Association. Retrieved 2013-03-02.
    See also the current homepage, "Phoenix Award".
  8. [Consensus ad idem: a protocol for development of consensus statements. Can J Surg 2013; 56 (6); 365 http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/30b550e2#/30b550e2/6]

External links

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