Wednesday, November 02, 2011

The Most Unsettling Series of Children's Books Ever Published


Meet the Lonely Doll.

From a piece on Booktryst...

Dare Wright (1914-2001) was The Lonely Doll, the book that brought her fame and the first in a series of children's books about Edith, the two bears who befriended her, and the juvenile psychodramas Wright placed them in, one great big happy family, the yearning of a woman-child working out her neuroses. The books are, to a large degree, autobiographical exercises in wish-fulfillment.

Dare Wright, in essence, photographed and published scenes from her fantasy life with her as the star, a little girl trapped in a world beyond her understanding and working through it with child-sense. And young girls responded; the books became very popular. Through the child-eyes of Dare Wright and her readers, The Lonely Doll series reflects the world as they understand it. To mature adults, they may seem a bit disturbing, with a strange, neo-gothic, somewhat creepy, perverse core; Dare Wright's life writ child-size. They are now very collectible.

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