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Mary Norton, Author
Imprint: Orion Children's Books
Publication date: October 9, 2025
Category: Classic fiction
ISBN: 9781510102064
A beautiful hardback gift edition of Mary Norton’s classic children’s story, THE BORROWERS, including the original artwork by Diana Stanley.
Deep beneath the floorboards lives the tiny Borrower family – Pod, Homily and Arrietty Clock. Everything they have is borrowed from the humans above them; even their names are not quite their own. There is just one rule: they must never be seen. Then one day Arrietty meets the boy from above, and the family’s incredible adventure begins.
Originally published in 1952 when it won the Carnegie Medal, The Borrowers is a stunning tale of growing up, family relationships, and making the most unexpected friends. It’s the perfect gift for readers of all generations.
Mary Norton spent much of her childhood in a late Georgian house which later became the model for Firbank Hall in ‘The Borrowers’. For a year she acted at the Old Vic before getting married and going to live in Portugal. During the Second World War she was evacuated to New York and struggled to support herself and her four children while her husband was in the Navy. It was then that she began to write, and in 1945 her first children’s books, ‘The Magic Bedknob’ and ‘Bonfires and Broomsticks’ later combined in a single volume, ‘Bedknob and Broomstick’ was published. These were followed in 1952 by ‘The Borrowers’, which was awarded the Carnegie Medal, and three other titles ‘The Borrowers Afield’, ‘The Borrowers Afloat’ and ‘The Borrowers Aloft’.