Dorothy Wall

Who was Dorothy Wall?

Dorothy Wall was a New Zealand-born author and illustrator of children's fiction books. She is most famous for creating Blinky Bill, an anthropomorphic koala who was the central character in her books Blinky Bill: the Quaint Little Australian, Blinky Bill Grows Up and Blinky Bill and Nutsy. Most of her books were first published by Angus & Robertson.

Wall was born in Wellington, New Zealand on 12 January 1894 of English parents and won scholarships for her art at the age of 10. She migrated to Australia in 1914 and worked for the Sun newspaper in Sydney. In 1920 her first children's story "Tommy Bear and the Zookies" was published and the following year she married Andrew Delfosse Badgery. The same year Wall found some acclaim for her illustrations in J.J. Hall's book "The Crystal Bowl".

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s she continued to work as an illustrator. Her best known book Blinky Bill: the Quaint Little Australian was published in 1933. In 1934 she divorced Badgery and moved with her son to Warrimoo in the Blue Mountains where she completed two more Blinky Bill books, Blinky Bill Grows Up and Blinky Bill and Nutsy.