Pollyanna

Description

Pollyanna is a best-selling 1913 novel by Eleanor H. Porter that is now considered a classic of children's literature, with the title character's name becoming a popular term for someone with the same very optimistic outlook: a subconscious bias towards the positive is often described as the Pollyanna principle. The book was such a success that Porter soon produced a sequel, Pollyanna Grows Up (1915). Eleven more Pollyanna sequels, known as "Glad Books", were later published, most of them written by Elizabeth Borton or Harriet Lummis Smith. Further sequels followed, including Pollyanna Plays the Game by Colleen L. Reece, published in 1997.

Author description

Eleanor Emily Hodgman Porter was an American novelist. She was born in 1868 in Littleton, New Hampshire. She was trained as a singer, attending the New England Conservatory for several years. In 1892 she married John Lyman Porter and moved to Massachusetts, after which she began writing and publishing her short stories and, later, novels. She died in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1920, and was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery.Neil Reed (Illustrator) Neil Reed has been an illustrator for more than twenty years and has illustrated novels such as Goodnight, Mr Tom and What Katy Did. As well as illustrating, Neil enjoys landscape design and painting. He currently lives in Cornwall.