Helen Bannerman – Scottish author, 1862-1946.
BANNERMAN, Helen Brodie Cowan Watson 1862-1946 Bom in Edinburgh, Bannerman was educated at St. Andrew’s University and in Germany and Italy. She married a doctor in the Indian Medical Service and lived with him in India.
In 1898, she wrote and illustrated her first book for her two daughters, Little Black Sambo, while travelling between Madras and the hill station where her daughters were staying for the summer. lt was published in London by Grant Richards in 1899, and was followed by a number of others in the same style and format.
Peppin remarks that “her illustrations, though obviously the work of an amateur, were clear and straightforward”. The last book published during her lifetime was Sambo and the Twins, and Little White Squibba was found in manuscript form after her death and published in 1966.
In recent years, her books have been attacked for racism, but at least one writer has noted that, though her work “has been much criticized of late as enshrining a crude and paternalistic attitude towards coloured families, . . . there is no escaping that Mrs. Helen Bannerman’s little story has an immediacy of appeal which has nothing to do with the names or life-style of its protagonist and everything to do with dramatic shape and unpretentious language” (Alderson, 1973).
Books written and illustrated by Helen Bannerman include:
- Little Black Sambo. First Edition 1899.
- Little Black Sambo (Grant Richards, 1899)
- Little Black Mingo (Nisbet, 1901)
- Little Black Quibba (Nisbet, 1902)
- The Story of Little Degchie-Head (Nisbet, 1903)
- Pat and the Spider (Nisbet, 1904)
- The Story of the Teasing Monkey (Nisbet, 1906)
- The Story of Little Black Quasha (Nisbet, 1908)
- The Story of Little Black Bobtail (Nisbet, 1909),
- Sambo and the Twins (Nisbet, 1937)
- Little White Squibba (Nisbet, 1966).
