Margery Williams

Margery Williams Bianco (22 July 1881 – 4 September 1944) was an English-American author, primarily of popular children's books. A professional writer since the age of 19, she achieved lasting fame at 41 with the 1922 publication of the classic that is her best-known work, The Velveteen Rabbit. She received the Newbery Honor for Winterbound.

Early life and education Margery Winifred Williams was born in London in 1881, the second daughter of a noted barrister and a renowned classical scholar, Robert Williams and Florence Williams née Harper. She and her sister were encouraged by her father, whom she remembered as a deeply loving and caring parent, to read and use their imaginations. Writing about her childhood many years later, she recalled how vividly her father described characters from various books and the infinite world of knowledge and adventure that lay on the printed page. She noted that the desire to read, which soon transformed into a need to write, was a legacy from her father that would be hers for a lifetime.

Marriage, children and the influence of Walter de la Mare's writings While visiting her publisher, Margery Williams met Francesco Bianco, an Italian living in London, who was employed as the manager of one of the book departments. They were married in 1904 and became the parents of a son, Cecco, and a daughter, Pamela. Pamela was a renowned child artist The Thing in the Woods was known to H. P. Lovecraft, and some commentators think it may have influenced his "The Dunwich Horror".

Return to America and The Velveteen Rabbit

At the end of 1918 the Great War had ended, but postwar hunger and deprivation became a problem in Europe. In 1921, Bianco, along with her family, returned to the United States and settled in Greenwich Village. Inspired by the innocence and playful imagination of her children, as well as the inspiration she felt from the magic and mysticism contained in the works of Walter de la Mare, she decided to resume her writing, and gained almost immediate celebrity.

The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real was Margery Williams Bianco's first American work, and it remains her most famous. It has remained a classic piece of literature through numerous adaptations in children's theatre as well as on radio, television and in the movies.

The author's trademark undercurrents of sentimentality and sadness persist in the tale of a small boy who finds a velveteen rabbit in his Christmas stocking. In the nursery the rabbit is looked down on by the fancier wind-up toys. He asks the skin horse, "What is Real?" The skin horse tells him, "When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

In 1939, as her native Britain entered World War II, Bianco began to include patriotic themes and references to European history in her works, such as 1941's Franzi and Gizi. Her final book, 1944's Forward Commandos!, was an inspirational story of wartime heroism, which included as one of its characters a black soldier. Acknowledging the contribution of African-Americans to the war effort was extremely rare in literary output of the time and that fact was noted in the book's reviews.

Margery Williams Bianco did not live to see World War II end. As Forward Commandos! went on sale, she became ill and, after three days in the hospital, died at the age of 63 on 4 September 1944 in New York City.