A Peach of a Project
The author of the quaint, but much-loved Ladybird books was also a radical playwright.
The playwright Lawrence du Garde Peach (1890-1974) is remembered today as the author of most of the books in the Ladybird Adventures from History series. These were a series of inexpensive, colourfully illustrated, mini-hardback history books for children, which sold millions of copies from the 1950s to the 1980s. For Peach this was a retirement project – if he ever truly retired – and represented just one facet of his creative output.
Ladybird books enthusiasts, of whom there are many, tend to have views tinged with nostalgia. For many, Peach sparked off a life-long love of history. The academic community, however, has not always been as welcoming. To his critics, Peach produced simplified, narrow-minded history, suffused with the illusions of postwar Britain.
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