Руби Фергюсон: Жизнь и творчество английской писательницы

English fiction and children's writer (1899–1966)

Ruby Constance Annie Ferguson, née Ashby (28 July 1899 – 11 November 1966), was an English writer of popular fiction, including children's literature, romances and mysteries as R. C. Ashby and Ruby Ferguson. She is best known today for her novel Lady Rose and Mrs. Memmary and her Jill books, a series of Pullein Thompsonesque pony books for children and young adults.

Ruby Constance Annie Ashby was born in Hebden Bridge and raised in Reeth, North Yorkshire. Her parents were Ann Elizabeth, (born Spencer) and the Reverend David Ashby, a Wesleyan minister. Ferguson later became a lay officer of the Methodist church. She received her education at Bradford Girls Grammar School and then at St Hilda's College at the University of Oxford, where she read English from 1919 to 1922, gaining a 3rd class BA After its original publication, The Queen Mother is reported to have enjoyed the book so much that she invited Ruby Ferguson to dinner at Buckingham Palace. The new edition also received favourable notices and it was one of the "Books of the Year" by The Spectator. Between 1949 and 1962 she gained great popularity with the "Jill" books for her step grandchildren, Libs, Sallie, and Pip. Her last book in 1967, Children at the Shop, is a fictionalised memoir of her childhood. Aside from the Jill series, most of Ferguson's books are long out of print.

The Jill books are a series of nine children's novels about young equestrienne Jill Crewe and her adventures with her two ponies, Black Boy and Rapide. In recent editions, small changes were made to make the books more accessible. The series takes the protagonist from the age of twelve to fifteen, from a pony novice to a prize winning rider. In the first book in the series, Jill's Gymkhana, Jill's father has recently died, and she moves with her mother to a small Pool Cottage near the fictional village of Chatton. Her mother hopes to support them both as a children's author (similarly to E. Nesbit's classic The Railway Children). Jill is at first a social outcast in "horsy" Chatton because she doesn't own a pony and can't ride. When her mother's stories finally begin to sell for £52, however, the first thing she buys is "Black Boy" pony for £12 for her daughter. With hard work and the expert assistance of Martin Lowe, a wheelchair using former Royal Air Force pilot, Jill becomes a star of Chatton equitation. Jill is grateful for her mother's success; however, as she says repeatedly throughout the series, she "can't get on" with her mother's books at all, finding them impossibly sweet and whimsical (possibly a veiled criticism of the works of Enid Blyton). In contrast, Ferguson's Jill is an active, independent and witty character who defies post war expectations for English girls by scorning ladylike pursuits, treating boys her own age as equals, and working hard to achieve her goals. This makes Ferguson's writing outstanding not only in the pony stories genre, but in children's literature generally.