Born in 1890 near Doncaster, Barbara Euphan Todd and her parents, Thomas, an Anglican vicar, and her mother Alice, moved to the village in Hampshire where Barbara was brought up. She was a VAD in the First World War and later had articles published in
Punchand
The Spectatorbefore focussing on writing for children. This is the area for which she is best remembered, particularly the ten novels about
Worzel Gummidge, The Scarecrow of Scatterbrookbetween
1936 and 1963. She died in Berkshire in 1976.
Miss Ranskill Comes Home is Todd’s only novel for adults, published in 1946 under the name Barbara Bower by Chapman and Hall and republished in 2003 by Persephone Books. Extraordinary in many ways, the novel is an example of how “war reverberates through literature” (McLoughlin, 1). In
1469 words
Citation: Kennedy, Sue. "Miss Ranskill Comes Home". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 31 July 2022 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=40900, accessed 24 November 2024.]
