Emily Plenderleath Harrison (b.
reg. Hart, Durham , Oct.-Dec. 1843; d. reg. Windsor , Berkshire , Oct.-Dec.
1933)
Emily Plenderleath Harrison was the fourth of eleven
daughters of William Gorst Harrison (1803-1891), the oldest of five sons of
shipbroker William Harrison of Thornhill, Sunderland .
In a brief introduction to her sole book, The
Lion’s Birthday (Eton, London, and Colchester: Spottiswoode, Ballantyne
& Co., [1920]), Harrison notes that the book was written by her sister and
herself more than sixty years earlier (i.e., before 1860), and though she admitted
to collaboration, she did not name any one of her sisters on the title page as
co-author. This short children’s book contains illustrations by Dora
Barks, and a one-paragraph “Foreword” by M.R. James, the noted ghost story
writer, then Provost of Eton College. Harrison worked
at Eton College Harrison
never married, and died in late 1933, aged 89.
The Lion’s Birthday
is a story told in forty verses, each containing four lines. The story
tells of the Lion, who in order to celebrate the ten years he has been monarch
of the wood and plain, sends out invitations to the various animals to join him
for a party. Not all the animals are eager:
That it would be an awful bore;
But yet he thought he ought to go
As he had never been before.
The Tigers, Wolves and Panthers
said
“Pray tell the Lion we’ll be
charmed.”
The Stags (poor things!) replied
the same,
But inwardly they felt alarmed.
The monkeys are excited, the sheep are shy (fearing that the
Wolves surely would be there), the Bears and Leopards were delighted.
Alas, the party does not work out so well, for the Tiger is tempted by the Deer
and kills her, breaking everything up, and some animals giving chase to the
murderer.
James ironically calls the story a “pleasant ballad” in his
foreword.
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