Lorna Hill


Lorna Hill, was an English author of over 40 books for children.

Life and works

Lorna was the daughter of G. H. Leatham and his wife Edit. She went to Durham High School for Girls and then attended Le Manoir, a finishing school in Lausanne, Switzerland. She gained a Bachelor of Arts in English literature at Durham University in 1926, and there met her husband, the Rev. Victor Hill, an Anglican clergyman. They were married in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1928, and in 1931 they moved to the remote parish of Matfen, Northumberland, where she played the organ in church and ran a Sunday school.
Hill's career as an author began when her daughter Vicki, then about ten years old, found a story her mother had written as a child and asked for more about its characters. The result was a series of eight books about Marjorie & Co, illustrated by author herself, which began to appear in London in 1948. They were followed by the Patience series and several others.
When Vicki left home to be a ballet student at Sadler's Wells in London, Hill missed her and began to write her Dream of Sadler's Wells series. She eventually wrote a total of 40 children's books, as well as La Sylphide, a commissioned biography of the dancer Marie Taglioni, and two romances for adults, published in 1978. Hill was then obliged to stop writing by ill health. She is said to have been firm with publishers and to have earned more from her books than many of her contemporaries. Translations of some titles into several other languages appeared, including less usual ones such as Finnish, Indonesian, Czech and Slovenian.
In private life, Hill took an interest in animal rights that led to conflict with neighbouring farmers. She moved late in life to Keswick, Cumbria, where she lived with Vicki. She died on 17 August 1991.
The Radstock, Somerset-based reprint company Girls Gone By Publishers had four of Lorna Hill's children's books in print in 2011, but as of 2019 they were out of print. The UK publishing journal The Publisher remarked in 1989, "Lorna Hill writes the kind of books children would write for, and about, themselves if they could."

''Marjorie'' series

''Sadlers Wells'' series

  1. A Dream of Sadlers Wells
  2. Veronica at the Wells
  3. Masquerade at the Wells
  4. No Castanets at the Wells
  5. Jane Leaves the Wells
  6. Ella at the Wells
  7. Return to the Wells
  8. Rosanna Joins the Wells
  9. Principal Rôle
  10. Swan Feather
  11. Dress-Rehearsal
  12. Back-Stage
  13. Vicki in Venice
  14. The Secret

    ''Patience'' series

  15. They Called Her Patience
  16. It Was All Through Patience
  17. So Guy Came Too
  18. The Five Shilling Holiday

    ''Dancing Peel'' series

  19. Dancing Peel
  20. Dancer's Luck
  21. The Little Dancer
  22. Dancer in the Wings
  23. Dancer in Danger
  24. Dancer on Holiday

    ''The Vicarage Children'' series

  25. The Vicarage Children
  26. More About Mandy
  27. The Vicarage Children in Skye

    Adult Books

  28. La Sylphide, The Life of Marie Taglioni
  29. The Scent of Rosemary
  30. The Other Miss Perkin