F. J. Harvey Darton

Darton was the oldest child of Joseph William Darton (1844–1916) and Mary Darton (née Schooling). Joseph was a partner in the publishing firm Wells Gardner, Darton and Company, which had been started by William Wells Gardner (1821–1880) to produce mainly ecclesiastical texts, but had branched out into children's literature with Joseph's involvement.[6] The family involvement in publishing children's literature went back to 1787, with the two publishing firms of Frederick's great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather, William Darton.[7] William Darton had pioneered the publication of books for children, introducing Ann and Jane Taylor to English schoolchildren.[8][9][10]

Darton attended Sutton Valence School[3] and Dover College, and graduated from St John's College, Oxford in 1899 with a degree in classics. While at college, he visited Dorset many times on reading parties,[11] and developed a love of the county which would last his entire life.[3]

After graduating, he joined the family publishing firm, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., becoming a director in 1904. The firm published children's magazines as well as books, including The Prize and Chatterbox, which Darton edited from 1901 to 1931.[3][12] He was behind the firm's publication of John Masefield's Martin Hyde in 1906.

At the time, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co. published many compilations of older stories, including reissues of the chapbook The Seven Champions of Christendom (1901) and compilations of stories from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

In 1906 Darton married Emma Lucretia Bennett, a granddaughter of Sheridan Le Fanu. Together they worked on A Wonder Book of Beasts (1909), in which Emma retold "Reynard the Fox" from the version printed by William Caxton, 400 years before.[13] However, their marriage was annulled in 1920.[14]

In 1913 Darton published the first of two novels: My Father's Son, under the pseudonym "W. W. Penn" and apparently "prepared for the press by John Harvey", both names suggesting Darton's Quaker background.[14] His second novel When (1929) was again pseudonymous. The protagonists of both books end up in the family book trade, and although they are not autobiographical, they have been described by Margaret Drabble, investigating Darton, as "darkly illuminating".

Darton's masterpiece was Children's Books in England: Five Centuries of Social Life, published in 1932. In the preface, he wrote:

The story of English Children's Books has not yet, so far as I know, been written as a continuous whole, or as a minor chapter in the history of English social life, which is what the present volume is meant to furnish. It has in fact been told only once with any completeness, in Mrs Field's The Child and His Book (1892).[15]

The work drew on his family's 200 years in children's publishing, and his own experience of more than 30 years. As an academic work, it did not sell fast, but as Kathleen Lines noted in an introduction to a second revised edition in 1958, it "slowly found its way into libraries, schools and training schools for librarians." When reprinting the first edition in 2011, Cambridge University Press noted:

Setting children's books in their historical context, the work reflects much about the history of English social life as well as providing an in-depth perspective on the genre.... A classic and authoritative study for anyone interested in the history of children's literature.[16]

In the book, Darton wrote, for example, that Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland books "changed the whole cast of children's literature".[17]

Darton also wrote about his great love, the English countryside, and Dorset in particular. In 1922 he wrote The Marches of Wessex, which was also published in America under the more obvious title The Soul of Dorset. He followed this up with A Parcel of Kent, and returned to Dorset for an article in T. P.'s and Cassell's Weekly called "Thomas Hardy's Birthplace" in 1924.[18]

He retired to Cerne Abbas, Dorset and lived in the village's Red Lion pub for the last two years of his life. His final book, Alibi Pilgrimage, was published in 1936. It examines the case of Elizabeth Canning, who claimed to have been kidnapped by Gypsies in 1753. Darton attempted to confirm the Gypsies' alibi by undertaking long walks through all the counties from Somerset to London.

Darton died after a short illness in Dorchester County Hospital, on 26 July 1936, two days after the publication of Alibi Pilgrimage. His obituary in The Times suggested that the arduous walks undertaken in its research contributed to his death.[8]

In her revision of Children's Books in England in 1958, Kathleen Lines stated:

It is probably safe to say that Darton will never be supplanted. His interest was life-long and his personal knowledge immense. His opportunities for detailed information about and round the subject were unique, for his family had maintained a continuous connection with publishing for 140 years.

• The Story of the Canterbury Pilgrims: Retold from Chaucer and Others (1904)
• Without Fear and Without Reproach: The Adventures of the Famous Knight Bayard (1905)
• The Merry Tales of the Wise Men Of Gotham (1907). Illustrated by Gordon Browne
• A Wonder Book of Old Romance (1907). Illustrated by A. G. Walker
• Pilgrims' Tales from "Tales of the Canterbury Pilgrims" (1908). Illustrated by Hugh Thomson
• A Wonder Book of Beasts (1909). Illustrated by Margaret Clayton
• The Life and Times of Mrs Sherwood (1775–1851) (1910). Edited
• My Father's Son: a Faithful Record (1913), under the pseudonym W. W. Penn[3]
• Seven Champions of Christendom (1913). Illustrated by Norman Ault
• The London Museum (1914)
• Arnold Bennett [Writers of the Day series] (1915): "a brilliant survey of Arnold Bennett's work, and an estimate of the man"[19]
• The Marches of Wessex (1922, The Soul of Dorset in the United States)
• A Parcel of Kent (1924)
• "Thomas Hardy's Birthplace", in: T. P.'s and Cassell's Weekly (1924)
• Vincent Crummles, his Theatre and his Times (1926)
• English Books 1475–1900: a Signpost for Collectors (1927). With Charles J. Sawyer, another bookseller and publisher
• Reynard the Fox. With E. L. Darton
• When: a Record of Transition (1929), under the name "the late J. L. Pole"
• J. M. Barrie Writers of the Day series (1929)
• The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1930). Edited and introduced
• From Surtees to Sassoon: some English contrasts (1838-1928) (1931)
• Children's Books in England: Five Centuries of Social Life (1932)
• English Fabric: A Study Of Village Life (1935)
• Alibi Pilgrimage (1936)