Rose Amy Fyleman (6 March, 1877–1 August, 1957) was an English writer and poet, noted for her works on the fairy folk, for children. Her poem "There are fairies at the bottom of our garden"[1] was set to music by English composer Liza Lehmann. Her carol "Lift your hidden faces", set to a French carol tune, was included in the Anglican hymnal Songs of Praise (1925), The Oxford Book of Carols (1928) as well as in the Hutterian Brotherhood's Songs of Light (1977).
Life and works
Rose Fyleman was born in Nottingham on 6 March 1877, the third child of John Feilmann and his wife, Emilie, née Loewenstein, who was of Russian extraction. Her father was in the lace trade, and his Jewish family originated in 1860 from Jever in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, currently Lower Saxony, Germany.[2]
As a young girl, Fyleman was educated at a private school, and at the age of nine first saw one of her compositions published in a local paper. Although she entered University College, Nottingham, she failed in the intermediate and was thus unable to pursue her ambition of becoming a schoolteacher. Despite this, Fyleman had a good singing voice, and therefore decided to study music. She studied singing in Paris, Berlin and finally at the Royal College of Music in London, where she received her diploma as associate of the Royal College of Music. She returned to Nottingham shortly afterward, where she taught signing and helped in her sister's school. Along with other members of her family, she anglicised the spelling of her name at the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.
When she was forty, Fyleman sent her verses to Punch magazine and her first publication "There are Fairies at the Bottom of Our Garden" appeared in May 1917. The immense response from publishers prompted Fyleman to submit several other fairy poems. Her verses enjoyed tremendous success among readers and her first collection Fairies and Chimneys (1918) was reprinted more than twenty times over the next decade. During the 1920s and early 1930s Rose Fyleman published multiple verse collections, wrote drama for children, and for two years, edited the children's magazine Merry-Go-Round. Fyleman was also a skilled linguist who translated books from German, French and Italian, including the Bibi children's stories of Danish writer Karin Michaëlis.
Rose Fyleman was one of the most successful children's writers of her generation and she saw much of her earlier poetry become proverbial. She died at a nursing home in St. Albans, Hertfordshire on 1 August 1957.[3]
Poem about Winnipeg
In December 1929, Rose Fyleman was invited to Winnipeg, Canada, as the guest speaker at a couple of women's clubs.[4] She was staying at the Fort Garry Hotel, near the Manitoba Parliament Building on Broadway Ave. One evening, Rose and the president of one of the clubs decided to take a stroll to the parliament building, so that Rose could view the statue of Queen Victoria, located on its front lawn.[5]
Queen Victoria statue, Winnipeg—taken in 2013
It was such a beautiful winter evening that when they got back to the hotel, Rose was inspired to write a poem entitled "Winnipeg at Christmas."[6] The poem appeared in print soon after—on New Year's Day, 1930—in the British magazine Punch.[7] This poem is familiar to many inhabitants of Winnipeg, who were first exposed to it in school, and is often cited during the Christmas season. Fred Penner, a children's entertainer from Winnipeg, included it on his 1990 recording for Christmas, entitled "The Season." In 2018 The Winnipeg Singers, a choir from Winnipeg, commissioned composer Michael A. McKay to write a choral setting of the poem and premiered it in their 2018 Christmas concert, "In Winnipeg It's Christmas".
The Timothy Boy Trust, illustrations by Marjorie Wratten, Methuen (London, England), 1944.
Hob and Bob: A Tale of Two Goblins, illustrations by Charles Stewart, Hollis & Carter (London, England), 1944.
Adventures with Benghazi, illustrations by Peggy Fortnum, Eyre & Spottiswoode (London, England), 1946.
The Smith Family at the Seaside, Arnold (Leeds, England), 1947.
The Smith Family in the Country, Arnold (Leeds, England), 1947.
The Smith Family in Town, Arnold (Leeds, England), 1947.
Nursery Stories, Evans (London, England), 1949.
Lucy the Lamb, Eyre & Spottiswoode (London, England), 1951.
Neddy the Donkey, Eyre & Spottiswoode (London, England), 1951.
The Sparrow and the Goat, Eyre & Spottiswoode (London, England), 1951.
The Starling and the Fox, Eyre & Spottiswoode (London, England), 1951.
White Flower, illustrations by M. E. Stewart, Arnold (Leeds, England), 1953.
Poetry; Juvenile
The Sunny Book, illustrations by Millicent Sowerby, Oxford University Press (London, England), 1918.
Fairies and Chimneys, Methuen (London, England), 1918, Doran (New York, NY), 1920.
The Fairy Green, Methuen (London, England), 1919, Doran (New York, NY), 1923.
The Fairy Flute, Methuen (London, England), 1921, Doran (New York, NY), 1923.
A Small Cruse, illustrations by Katy Kruse, Methuen (London, England), 1923.
The Rose Fyleman Fairy Book, Doran (New York, NY), 1923.
Fairies and Friends, Methuen (London, England), 1925, Doran (New York, NY), 1926.
The Rose Fyleman Calendar, illustrations by Lisl Hummel, Methuen (London, England), 1927.
(With others) Joy Street Poems, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 1927.
A Princess Comes to Our Town, illustrations by Gertrude Lindsay, Methuen (London, England), 1927, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1928.
(Editor) Round the Mulberry Bush: Being a Book of Stories and Verses for Children, Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1928.
Old-Fashioned Girls, and Other Poems, illustrations by Ethel Everett, Methuen (London, England), 1928.
A Garland of Rose's: Collected Poems of Rose Fyleman, illustrations by René Bull, Methuen (London, England), 1928.
Gay Go Up, illustrations by Decie Merwin, Methuen (London, England), 1929, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1930.
Fifty-One New Nursery Rhymes, illustrations by Dorothy Burroughes, Methuen (London, England), 1931, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1932.
(With Thomas F. Dunhill) The Blue Rhyme Book (text by Fyleman; music by Dunhill), Boosey-Methuen (London, England), 1933.
(Editor) Sugar and Spice: A Collection of Nursery Rhymes, New and Old, illustrations by Janet Laura Scott, Whitman (Racine, WI), 1935.
(Editor) Here We Come A'Piping, illustrations by Irene Mountfort, four volumes, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 1936–37, one-volume edition, Stokes (New York, NY), 1937.
(Editor) A'Piping Again, illustrations by Irene Mountfort, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 1936, Stokes (New York, NY), 1938.
(Editor) Bells Ringing: An Anthology of Verse for Young Children, illustrations by Irene Mountfort, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 1938, Stokes (New York, NY), 1939.
(Editor) Pipe and Drum: An Anthology of Verse for Young Children, illustrations by Irene Mountfort, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 1939, Stokes (New York, NY), 1940.
Runabout Rhymes, illustrations by Margaret Tempest, Methuen (London, England), 1941.
Number Rhymes, Arnold (Leeds, England), 1946.
Rhyme Book for Adam, Methuen (London, England), 1949.
(Editor) Over the Tree Tops: Nursery Rhymes from Many Lands, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 1949.
A Fairy Went A-Marketing, illustrations by Jamichael Henterly, Dutton (New York, NY), 1986.
Plays; Juvenile
Eight Little Plays for Children (includes Darby and Joan, The Fairy Riddle, Noughts and Crosses, The Weather Clerk, The Fairy and the Doll, Cabbages and Kings, In Arcady, and Father Christmas), Methuen (London, England), 1924, Doran (New York, NY), 1925.
Seven Little Plays for Children (includes The Princess and the Pirate, The Mermaid, Peter Coffin, The Arm-Chair, Mother Goose's Party, The Coming of Father Christmas, and The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker), Methuen (London, England), 1928.
Nine New Plays for Children (includes The Whisker, The Moon, Cinderella "At Home," The Sampler, Three Naughty Imps, The Test, Sleeping Beauty, Father Christmas Comes to Supper, and Surprise, the Imp), illustrations by Eleanor L. Halsey, Nelson (New York, NY), 1934.
Six Longer Plays for Children (includes Snow-White, Porridge, Pork-Pie Night, The Beat, The Gus-Plug, and The Angry Brownies), illustrations by Eleanor L. Halsey, Nelson (London, England), 1936.
The Magic Pencil, and Other Plays from My Tales (includes The Carpet of Truth, Captain Marwhopple, The Rhyming Prince, The Magic Pencil, The Chestnut Man, The Three Princesses, Troodle, and A Legend of St. Nicholas), Methuen (London, England), 1938.
The Spanish Cloak, Methuen (London, England), 1939.
(Adaptor; with Will Grant) Red-Riding Hood, music by Grant, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 1949.
Karin Michaëlis, Bibi Goes Travelling, illustrations by Hedvig Collin, Allen & Unwin (London, England), 1934.
Widdy-Widdy-Wurkey: Nursery Rhymes from Many Lands, illustrations by Valerie Carrick, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 1934, published as Picture Rhymes from Foreign Lands, Stokes (New York, NY), 1935, published as Nursery Rhymes from Many Lands, Dover (New York, NY), 1971.
Karin Michaëlis, Green Island, illustrations by Hedvig Collin, Allen & Unwin (London, England), 1936.
Lida, Père Castor's Wild Animal Books, eight volumes, illustrations by Rojan, Allen & Unwin, 1937–42.
Jan Karafiat, Fireflies, illustrations by Emil Weiss, Allen & Unwin (London, England), 1942.
Alfred Flueckiger, Tuck: The Story of a Snow Hare, illustrations by Grace Huxtable, Lane (London, England), 1949.
Marie-Louise Ventteclaye, Simone and the Lilywhites, Museum Press (London, England), 1949.
Lillian Miozzi, The Adventures of Tommy, the Cat Who Went to Sea, illustrations by Charlotte Hough, Lane (London, England), 1950.
Lily Martini, Peter and His Friend Toby, illustrations by Wolfgang Felten, Lane (London, England), 1955.
Other
A Little Christmas Book, illustrations by Lisl Hummel, Methuen (London, England), 1926, Doran (New York, NY), 1927.
The Katy Kruse Dolly Book, illustrations by Katy Kruse, Doran (New York, NY), 1927.
The Second Katy Kruse Dolly Book, Harrap (London, England), 1930.
Hey! Ding-a-Ding, University of London Press (London, England), 1931.
The Rose Fyleman Birthday Book, illustrations by Muriel Dawson and Margaret Tarrant, Medici Society (London, England), 1932.
(With Thomas F. Dunhill) Happy Families (opera; produced in 1933), music by Dunhill, Methuen (London, England), 1933.
Bears, illustrations by Stuart Tresilian, Nelson (New York, NY), 1935.
Monkeys, Nelson (New York, NY), 1936.
(With E. M. D. Wilson) Billy Monkey: A True Tale of a Capuchin, illustrations by Cecil Leslie, Nelson (London, England), 1936, Nelson (New York, NY), 1937.
A Book of Saints: Joan of Arc to St. Nicholas, illustrations by Gertrude Mittelman, Methuen (London, England), 1939.
Folk-Tales from Many Lands, Methuen (London, England), 1939.
(Translator) After All (play), Methuen (London, England), 1939.
^"Social and Personal". Manitoba Free Press. Winnipeg, MB. 5 December 1929. p. 10.
^"Winnipeg at Christmas". Archived from the original on 8 April 2008. Retrieved 20 December 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link). Retrieved 25 December 2010.
