Mabel Esther Allan

Who was Mabel Esther Allan?

Mabel Esther Allan was a British author of about 130 children's books.

Mabel Esther Allan was born at Wallasey on the Wirral Peninsula. She decided to be an author at the age of eight; her father bought her a writing desk and taught her how to type. When the family moved, Allan was given a study in which to write.

Her eyesight was poor, which her parents 'took...very badly and wrongly'. Indeed, it was such a taboo subject that she never discussed it with anyone until she was almost thirty, when it spontaneously improved. Her eyesight was the reason she disliked school.

She published a few short stories in the 1930s, and had longer submissions accepted, but her activities were interrupted by the Second World War. Allan served in the Women's Land Army and taught at a crowded school in Liverpool. However, in 1948 she sent the manuscript of The Glen Castle Mystery to her publisher, which began a hugely prolific career. Like L.M. Montgomery's characters, she began her writing her books with a 'Flash': a sense of possessing a landscape for a story. 'It was the basis of all my writing', she commented in a 2006 foreword to Chiltern Adventure.

Allan's books are fascinating for a number of reasons. Although like many authors of the era she often used the school book genre, she was a proponent of A.S. Neill, founder of an educational philosophy which promotes freedom and self-discipline in childhood. Her schools, significantly, are co-educational.