Alice Dalgliesh
Born	Alice Dalgliesh (1893-10-07)October 7, 1893 Trinidad,British West Indies
Died	(1979-06-11)June 11, 1979 Woodbury, Connecticut, United States
Occupation	Writer, publisher
Citizenship	American (naturalized)
Notable works	The Courage of Sarah Noble The Bears on Hemlock Mountain The Silver Pencil
Notable awards	Newbery Medal runner-up 1945, 1953, 1955

Alice Dalgliesh (October 7, 1893 – June 11, 1979) was a naturalized American writer and publisher who wrote more than 40 fiction and non-fiction books, mainly for children. She has been called "a pioneer in the field of children's historical fiction".^[1] Three of her books were runners-up for the annualNewbery Medal, the partly autobiographicalThe Silver Pencil,The Bears on Hemlock Mountain, andThe Courage of Sarah Noble, which was also named to theLewis Carroll Shelf Award list.

As the founding editor (in 1934) ofScribner's and Sons Children's Book Division, Dalgliesh published works by award-winning authors and illustrators includingRobert A. Heinlein,Marcia Brown,Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings,Katherine Milhous,Will James,Leonard Weisgard, andLeo Politi. Her prominence in the field of children's literature led to her being appointed the first president^[when?] of theChildren's Book Council, a national nonprofit trade association of children's book publishers and presses.^[2]

Born October 7, 1893, in Trinidad, British West Indies, to John and Alice (Haynes) Dalgliesh, Alice immigrated to England with her family when she was 13. Six years later she came to America^[3] to study kindergarten education at thePratt Institute in New York City. She eventually received a Bachelor in Education and Master in English Literature from the Teachers College atColumbia University. While she was at school Dalgliesh applied for and received her naturalization as an American citizen. She taught for 17 years at theHorace Mann School,^[4]: 256 while also leading courses in children's literature and story writing at Columbia.^[5] Dalgliesh regularly wrote about children's books forParent's Magazine (1929 to 1943),Publishers Weekly,School Library Journal, andThe Saturday Review.^[6] She also contributed toThe Horn Book Magazine, including the article "In Mr. Newbery's Bookshop", aboutJohn Newbery.^[7]

Dalgliesh worked with the textbook department at Charles Scribner and Sons editing social studies books. This led to an invitation to start a children's book publishing department at the firm in 1934. According toCharles Scribner, Jr., at that time "Scribner's employed no women except secretaries. When she came to my father and asked him to give her an office, he replied, 'Oh, do you really need one?'" Apparently he had expected her to begin and run the division out of her home.^[8] She held the position of children's book editor until 1960.

After her retirement from Scribner's, Dalgleish became the editor of "Books for Young Readers" byThe Saturday Review of Literature. She reviewed books for that magazine from 1961 until 1966.^[6]

Alice Dalgliesh died June 11, 1979, in Woodbury, Connecticut. Her papers are held at the University of Minnesota,^[9] Vassar College Library, and the Princeton University Library.^[6]

Dalgliesh began writing at the urging ofLouise Seaman Bechtel, then a publisher at Macmillan, who published her second book,The Little Wooden Farmer in 1930. Seaman Bechtal continued to mentor Dalgliesh after she began working at Scribners.^[10]

The Silver Pencil, published by Scribners in 1944, was a runner-up for the annual American Library AssociationNewbery Medal, a Newbery Honor Book in modern terms. The title refers to a silver pencil given to Dalgleish by her father.^[11]: 217 The book is a thinly veiled partial-autobiography about Janet Laidlaw, born in Trinidad to a Scotch father and British mother, like Dalgliesh. Janet eventually comes to America and becomes a teacher and writer. The book, illustrated by Katherine Milhous, was called bySaturday Review, "a treasure to possess and to keep."^[12] Two years laterAlong Janet's Road, also illustrated by Milhous, continued the story.

Dalgliesh's next major book wasThe Bears on Hemlock Mountain. She said this simple picture book was based on an old Pennsylvaniatall tale.^[13] Illustrated byHelen Sewell, it is another Newbery Honor Book.

Her third Newbery Honor Book came two years later,The Courage of Sarah Noble. The book opens with an Author's Note stating that it is a true story.Virginia Haviland, later the first director of theLibrary of Congress Children's Book Section, said ofSarah Noble, “Here is a remarkable book for younger readers — a true pioneer adventure, written for easy reading but without any sacrifice of literary quality or depth of feeling.”^[14]

Dalgliesh wrote over three dozen children's books, others for adults, and a great many articles and reviews of children's fiction. A number of her books were named Best Books of the Year byHorn Book Magazine.^[15] Her non-fiction was often noted by reviewers for its "casual yet factual and detailed style." Frequently her books capitalized on her interest in American history and were praised for their "accuracy and detail as well as her creation of believable characters and dramatic plots."^[9] Reviewer Rachel Fordyce pointed to her "strong sense of the child audience... and a delight in language, detail, situation, and action."^[4]: 258

Under her leadership the Children's Department at Scribners published many distinguished authors and illustrators likeN.C. Wyeth,Genevieve Foster andAlfred Morgan. She produced award-winning non-fiction, including several ground-breaking science and biography series. Her fiction sometimes pushed the boundaries, as in 1952'sTwo and the Town byHenry Felsen, in which a young girl becomes pregnant and the couple is then forced to marry.^[6]

Dalgliesh also developed juvenile science fiction, and wasRobert A. Heinlein's editor for many of his books, fromRed Planet, (1949), toHave Space Suit—Will Travel (1959). At one point she commented that she wished she had a girls' writer who could turn out a book a year, as Heinlein did for boys. Taking her idea to heart, he wrote the short story "Poor Daddy", with a teenage girl for the protagonist.^[16] One of Heinlein's juveniles that she edited eventually won aRetro-Hugo Award for Best Novel -Farmer in the Sky.^[17]

Francis Felsen, who worked under Dalgliesh as an editor, said she "knew clearly what she liked and didn't like and stood behind it”, but she also "let authors write in their own voice, had insights into writers, and a respect for history".^[6]Charles Scribner, Jr., came into the business while she was there, and said this of her: "She was a professional through and through. Indeed, she gave me my real education in publishing as a business, as a set of obligations, and as a career requiring the highest standards. She felt she had a calling to be a children's book editor and that her books had to be of the highest possible quality."^[8]

OnceWorld War II ended, schools around the U.S. began a major push to increase their libraries. According to Scribner Jr. again, "Alice's list was aimed directly at this very profitable market. All the people involved -- the editors, the artists, the reviewers, the teachers, the school librarians -- shared a common resolve to give American youngsters the very best literature that could be got."^[8] Given the number of award-winning books she published, it appears the industry felt she was successful. Children's literature authorityLeonard S. Marcus says inMinders of Make-Believe, "her department quietly captured the industry's respect and more than a few of its accolades."^[18] Besides the Hugo award, Dalgliesh published at least eleven Newbery Honor books, threeCaldecott Medal books and tenCaldecott Honor books, (including her own). Dalgleish has been "credited with advancing the place of children's literature in the publishing world".^[11]: 218

Robert Heinlein's correspondence (posthumously edited and published at his bequest by his wifeVirginia Heinlein asGrumbles from the Grave) describes throughout two chapters of the book changes Dalgliesh requested to Heinlein's books for Scribners to which Heinlein objected strongly.^[19]

During the period in which Alice Dalgliesh edited Heinlein's juvenile books (as documented inGrumbles from the Grave), she requested what Heinlein considered very unreasonable revisions to several of his novels. Some of these revisions were grounded in Freudian psychological analysis of Heinlein's work which he felt were without literary merit and were poorly considered. At one point, Dalgliesh asked Heinlein to have (in her words) "a good Freudian" look at his novels to point out what she thought undesirable psychosexual imagery in his work for juveniles.

Finally, during Dalgleish's editing of Heinlein'sThe Rolling Stones, Heinlein analyzed Dalgliesh's own juvenile novelAlong Janet's Way for psychosexual symbology in the same manner she analyzed his "Martian flat cats" - to show how (in his words) "it is impossible to write any story in such a way that it will not bring a knowing leer to the face of 'a good Freudian'."^[19]

There were also difficulties between Heinlein and Dalgliesh regarding Dalgliesh's successful insistence to have her personal views on gun control written intoTunnel in the Sky andRed Planet.^[19]

Learned T. Bulman, a reviewer ofThe Star Beast for the librarians' magazineLibrary Journal wrote Dalgliesh that, unless Scribners recalled all copies of the book and revised it to remove things to which he objected, he would "lambast" it in that librarians' trade journal. Heinlein wrote to his agent to complain that Dalgliesh took the reviewer's side in her written reply to him, conceding the reviewer's complaints on every point.

Bulman's main complaint was that inThe Star Beast, one of the juvenile characters was "flippant" to adult characters in the book. Heinlein told his agent that he expected a stronger defense of his books for Scribners from his editor than to cave in to criticism and threats over trivial matters. It was in this letter to his agent that Heinlein referred to his desire to take his books to another publishing house rather than deal with Alice Dalgliesh's requests for revisions of his work which were not related to their literary merits.^[19]

In 1959 (by which time Robert Heinlein had written a commercially successful series of juvenile novels while Alice Dalgliesh was the juveniles editor at Scribners), not only Dalgliesh but the publishing house's entire editorial board rejected his "young adult" novelStarship Troopers flatly in January 1959. Heinlein's correspondence with his agent shows this was the reason why he ceased to write for Scribners, takingStarship Troopers to George Putnam's Sons, where it was successfully published, winning the 1960 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

In a letter dated September 19, 1960, Heinlein refers to an approach made to him to resume writing for Scribners through Heinlein's agentLurton Blassingame in which he refused to return to their stable of juvenile book authors even though "I do know that Alice Dalgliesh is no longer there".^[19]

• A Happy School Year, Rand McNally & Company, 1924, (reader);
• West Indian Play Days, Rand McNally, 1926;
• The Little Wooden Farmer, Macmillan, 1930; reprint, 1958, with illustrations byAnita Lobel,ISBN 978-0-02-725590-4;
• First Experiences with Literature, C. Scribner's Sons, 1932, (college textbook);
• The Choosing Book The Macmillan Company, 1932, color illustrations by Eloise Burns Wilkin;
• A Book for Jennifer : A Story of London Children in the Eighteenth Century and of Mr. Newbery's Juvenile Library, Scribner, 1940;
• The Silver Pencil, * C. Scribner's Sons, 1944; reprint, Scholastic Inc., 1992,ISBN 978-0-590-46010-1;
• Along Janet's Road, C. Scribner's Sons, 1946;
• Christmas; A Book of Stories New and Old, C. Scribner's Sons, 1950;
• The Bears on Hemlock Mountain, * C. Scribner's Sons, 1952; reprint, Simon and Schuster, 1992,ISBN 978-0-689-71604-1;
• The Courage of Sarah Noble, *+ C. Scribner's Sons, 1954; reprint, Baker & Taylor, CATS, 2009,ISBN 978-1-4420-1234-9;
• The Columbus Story, C. Scribner's Sons, 1955;
• The Thanksgiving Story, ^ illus.Helen Sewell, C. Scribner's Sons, 1954; reprint, Paw Prints, 2008,ISBN 978-1-4395-5424-1;
• The Fourth of July Story, C. Scribner's Sons, 1956; reprint, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 1995,ISBN 978-0-689-71876-2;
• Aids to Choosing Books for Your Children, with Duff, Annis, (editors), Children's Book Council, 1957;
• Ride on the Wind, C. Scribner's Sons, 1956, (biography ofCharles Lindbergh);
• The Enchanted Book, C. Scribner's Sons, 1958;
• America Begins: The Story of the Finding of the New World, with illustrations byLois Maloy, C. Scribner's Sons, 1938;
• America Builds Homes, illustrated by Lois Maloy, C. Scribner's Sons, 1938
• The Choosing Book, 1932, Macmillan, illustrated byEloise Wilkin

• Newbery Honor Book *^[20]
• Lewis Carroll Shelf Award book (1959) +^[21]
• Caldecott Honor Book ^^[22]

• Dalgliesh, Alice (31 October 1992).Audio Excerpt from "The Bears on Hemlock Mountain" Simon and Schuster. Simon and Schuster.ISBN 9780689716041.
• "Letter from Alice Dalgliesh".Antiqbook.
• "Scribner's Art Dept. Records".Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
• "Scribner Publishing House History".The House of Scribner. Archived fromthe original on 2008-12-12.
• Alice Dalgleish atLibrary of Congress, with 70 library catalog records

• American children's writers
• American book editors
• American book publishers (people)
• Women print editors
• 1893 births
• 1979 deaths
• Emigrants from the British West Indies to the United States
• Charles Scribner's Sons
• Columbia University faculty
• Newbery Honor winners
• Pratt Institute alumni
• Teachers College, Columbia University alumni
• Naturalized citizens of the United States
• Emigrants from the British West Indies to the United Kingdom

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