| Helen
Bannerman |
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| Nationality - Scottish |
Profession - Author |
| Date of birth - 25 Feb 1862
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Date of death - 1946 |
| Place of birth
- Edinburgh : Midlothian |
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Helen Bannerman (nee Boog Watson) was born on 25 February 1862 in Edinburgh, the daughter of a Free Church of Scotland minister.
Helen spent part of her childhood in Madeira, was educated privately in Edinburgh, and was awarded an external degree from St. Andrews University in 1887.
In 1899 she married Will Bannerman, a doctor in the Indian Medical Service, and from then until 1918 she lived in India.
It was in India that Helen started writing illustrated letters to her children which formed the basis of her first book, "The Story of Little Black Sambo" (1899), which was a huge success at the time, and is now of course infamous.
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Bannerman's defenders maintain that the loss of copyright allowed the production of pirate editions in which the racist overtones became much more emphatic than in the original. At best, one could perhaps argue that the book's racism merely reflected conventional opinion at the time.
Anyone interested in racism in Scottish literature might also care to study Carlyle's notorious polemic "The Nigger Question", or indeed John Buchan's "Prester John", to see how much attitudes have changed. If nothing else, these provide a healthy antidote to the old ludicrous opinion, still sometimes expressed, that racism is not to be found among the Scots people.
Bannerman wrote and illustrated nine subsequent books, most of them with equally dodgy titles, though a posthumously published work adds an unexpected twist to the formula.
Helen Bannerman died in Edinburgh on 13 October 1946. |
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Helen Bannerman
bibliography - 11
listed |
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