Bianco, Margery Williams (1881–1944)

English novelist, translator, and author of books for children, including The Velveteen Rabbit. Name variations: wrote under Margery Williams, Margery Williams Bianco, and Margery Bianco. Born Margery Williams on July 22, 1881, in London, England; died on September 4, 1944, in New York, New York; youngest of two daughters of Robert (a barrister, distinguished classical scholar, and journalist) and Florence (Harper) Williams; limited formal education: attended the Convent School in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania, for two years; married Francesco Bianco (a dealer in rare books and manuscripts), in 1904; children: son Cecco; Pamela Bianco (artist and illustrator of children's books).

Selected writings:

The Late Returning (1902); The Price of Youth (1904); The Bar (1906); Paris (1910); The Thing in the Woods (1913); The Velveteen Rabbit (1922); The Little Wooden Doll (1925); Poor Cecco (1925); The Apple Tree (1926); The Adventures of Andy (1927); The Skin Horse (1927); All About Pets (1929); The Candlestick (1929); The House That Grew Smaller (1931); A Street of Little Shops (1932); The Hurdy-Gurdy Man (1933); The Good Friends (1934); More About Animals (1934); (with J.C. Bowman) Green Grows the Garden (1936); Tales from a Finnish Tupa (1936); Winterbound (1936); Rufus the Fox (1937); Other People's Houses (1939); (with G. Loeffler) Franzi and Gizi (1941); Bright Morning (1942); The Five-and-a-half Club (1942); Penny and the White Horse (1942); Forward Commandos! (1944); Herbert's Zoo (1949); The New Five-and-a-half Club (1951).

Although Margery Bianco wrote successfully in many genres, she is best remembered for her children's classic The Velveteen Rabbit, which, written in 1922, still finds its way into children's hearts. This fantasy of a stuffed toy that is transformed into a live bunny through the power of love, was, according to Bianco, an "accident" and became the inspiration for many toy stories that followed. Bianco, who respected children, believed that literature nourished the imagination. "It is through imagination that a child makes his most significant contacts with the world about him," she said, "that he learns tolerance, pity, understanding and the love for all created things."

Bianco's early years in London were influenced by her father's philosophy that children should be taught to read at a young age but should not attend school until age ten. Her favorite books from her father's library included the three volumes of Wood's Natural History, which contributed to her early study of animals that is reflected in so much of her work. Childhood reading also included Hans Christian Andersen, to whom she was later compared. Following her father's death when she was seven, the family moved to New York, then to a farm in Pennsylvania. Bianco's limited formal education—day school in Philadelphia and two happy years at the Convent School in Sharon Hill—seemed quite enough to set her career in motion. Her first book, The Late Returning, an adult novel written when she was 17, was published in England in 1902. A second and third novel followed, as did her marriage to Francesco Bianco, a graduate of the University of Turin and also a lover of books. After the birth of their son in 1905 and a daughter in 1906, the Biancos lived in Paris and London until 1914, when World War I took them to Turin, where Francesco served in the Italian army. In 1919, they returned to London.

Most of Bianco's stories were written after her own children were beginning to grow up. Following The Velveteen Rabbit, she produced The Little Wooden Doll (1925), illustrated with her daughter Pamela Bianco 's early drawings. Poor Cecco, populated once again by family toys, was written the same year. Bianco's relationships with the family toys was not limited to her stories. She once wrote her daughter, assuring her that the Tubbies—Pamela's cherished playthings—were well and happy in her absence. "As a matter of fact," she wrote, "… Jensin's mother telephoned to ask if they couldn't stay over Wednesday, so as to go to a picnic, which she had arranged—with dancing afterwards, and I felt sure you wouldn't mind."

The broad range of Bianco's work included an autobiographical story, Bright Morning (1942), based on her childhood in London with her older sister. Her books about gardening and animals were also created from her own experiences. Two works, Winterbound (1936) and Other People's Houses (1939), which Bianco called "experiments," were considered precursors of the young adult novel and were heralded as stories of everyday life, a welcome alternative to the sentimental stories usually provided for young women at the time. It tells the story of the four Ellis children, who spend a hard winter alone in a Connecticut farmhouse where they overcome a number of potential disasters. Critics praised Bianco's skill with characterization, citing that even the most minor of characters was carefully and richly defined.

As a frequent contributor to Horn Book magazine, Bianco was also known for the quality of her criticism, to which she brought a vast knowledge of literature, impeccable standards, and a gift of insight into human nature. Her un-canny ability to almost crawl inside a child's mind made her an invaluable literary critic.

Bianco, Pamela (1906—)

Artist and writer for children. Born on December 31, 1906, in London, England; daughter of Francesco Giuseppe (a bibliographer and poet) andMargery (Williams) Bianco (a writer); attended private schools in France, England, and Italy; married Robert Schlick, in 1930 (divorced 1955); married Georg Theodor Hart-mann (an artist), on July 25, 1955 (died 1976); children: (first marriage) son, Lorenzo Bianco.

Selected writings—self-illustrated children's books:

The Starlit Journey (1933); Beginning with A (1947); Playtime in Cherry Street (1948); Joy and the Christmas Angel (1949); Paradise Square (1950); Little Houses Far Away (1951); The Look-Inside Easter Egg (1952); The Doll in the Window (1953); The Valentine Party (1954); Toy Rose (1957).

Illustrator:

Flora: A Book of Drawings by Pamela Bianco with Illustrative Poems by Walter de la Mare (1920); Margery Williams Bianco's The Little Wooden Doll (1925); (poems by Glenway Wescott) Natives of Rock (1925); Margery Bianco's The Skin Horse (1927); (poems by William Blake) The Land of Dreams (1928); Oscar Wilde's The Birthday of the Infanta (1929); Juliana Ewing's Three Christmas Trees (1930); Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid (1935); John Symond's Away to the Moon (1956).

Although she was born in London, Pamela Bianco's first memories are of Paris; her family moved there when she was four. She first became aware of pictures and books while watching her mother at work. When the family went to live in Turin, Italy, where her father was stationed during World War I, Pamela began writing poems and stories, which she sometimes made into small books with illustrations, mostly of children, Madonnas, cherubs, and angels. Though as a child she also enjoyed embroidery, sewing, and lace-making, she recalls drawing every day, first in pencil, then in penand-ink and watercolors.

Bianco was only 11 when her extraordinary drawings were exhibited at the Circolo degli Artisti in Turin. The following year, they were shown at Leicester Galleries in London where some of the drawings inspired Walter de la Mare to write poems which were later published with Bianco's drawings in the book Flora (1920). In 1922, when Bianco received an invitation to exhibit at the Anderson Galleries in New York, she came to America and made the country her home. Many solo exhibitions followed in San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, and numerous galleries in New York. After receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1930 to paint abroad, she returned to Europe, specifically Florence, Italy, and wrote The Starlit Journey (1933), the first book she both authored and illustrated.

Bianco found inspiration in many things, from music and stars, to little girls in white-lace party dresses. Her approach to writing was similar to her approach to painting, beginning with an idea that rolled around inside her head until it crystallized into a plot. "The plot is then worked out in its entirety," wrote Bianco, "and all the problems therein solved. Only then does the actual writing take place. When writing for children I try to keep the words and sentences as simple as possible, while at the same time striving to give a particular rhythm to the paragraphs."

Most of Bianco's books originate in her imagination, though Two, Paradise Square, about her childhood with her brother Cecco, and Little Houses Far Away, based on a train ride through the Alps, came from actual experience. Bianco's works are held by the Museum of Modern Art and Hirshhorn Museum.

Margery Bianco died in 1944, after a three-day illness. In 1951, Valenti Angelo, to whom Bianco was a friend and mentor, summarized the author's contribution in his tribute "A Living Friendship," which appeared in the book Writing and Criticism: A Book for Margery Bianco: "No person who has left to the world of literature for children such wisdom and sympathy and love of Nature will ever die. Her work should not go unnoticed in time to come. There is a great need for her kind of writing today, for her work is reaching for some lost dignity in life, and in reaching helps to bring it back."

Barbara Morgan , Melrose, Massachusetts