Marion St. John Webb

Marion Saint John Adcock Webb was an English writer of children's stories and poetry who foreshadowed A. A. Milne with her character "The Littlest One". She was born in Hampstead on December 5, 1888, as the daughter of poet Arthur St John Adcock and Marlon Louise Taylor. She grew raised at 42 Paddington Street and was admitted to St Marylebone School in Marylebone in January 1894, when she was barely five years old. Webb composed poems for a series of fairy books drawn by Margaret Tarrant, with...See more

Marion Saint John Adcock Webb was an English writer of children's stories and poetry who foreshadowed A. A. Milne with her character "The Littlest One". She was born in Hampstead on December 5, 1888, as the daughter of poet Arthur St John Adcock and Marlon Louise Taylor. She grew raised at 42 Paddington Street and was admitted to St Marylebone School in Marylebone in January 1894, when she was barely five years old. Webb composed poems for a series of fairy books drawn by Margaret Tarrant, with whom she collaborated on approximately 20 titles. Tarrant and Webb's handling of childhood is now considered as sentimental, as was usual at the time. She had no children of her own and died on May 2, 1930, in London. Her work is also considered ahead of its time, with incursions into imaginative parallel worlds, portraits of strong female leads, and dramatic characterisations of individuals on the periphery of society. Good editions of Little Round House go for hundreds of pounds in the specialist book trade. See less