Ruby Ferguson
Ruby Constance Annie Ferguson, née Ashby (28 July 1899 – 11 November 1966), was an English writer of popular fiction, including children's literature, romances and mysteries as R. C. Ashby and Ruby Fergunson. She is best known today for her novel "Lady Rose and Mrs. Memmary" and her "Jill" books, a series of Pullein-Thompsonesque pony books for children and young adults. Life and career. Ruby Constance Annie Ashby was born in Hebden Bridge and raised in Reeth, North Yorkshire. Her father was the Reverend David Ashby, a Wesleyan minister, and Ferguson herself later became a lay officer  of the Methodist church. She received her education at Bradford Girls Grammar School and then at St Hilda's College at the University of Oxford, where she read English from 1919 to 1922, gaining a normal BA and, a few years later, the Oxford MA. She then moved to Manchester and took a job as a secretary, supplementing her income by writing a regular column for the "British Weekly", and by reading and reviewing books for a publisher. Her writing career began in earnest when she submitted some detective stories for a weekly competition in the "Manchester Evening News". Her  first full-length novel appeared in 1926. She continued writing novels and stories under the name "R.C. Ashby" until the mid-1930s. In 1934, she married Samuel Ferguson, a widower with two sons. Three years later, she published "Lady Rose and Mrs. Memmary" as Ruby Ferguson, a romantic novel that became her greatest success, which was republished in 2004 by Persephone Books. On its original publication, The Queen Mother is reported to have enjoyed the book so much that she invited Ruby Ferguson to dinner at Buckingham Palace. The new edition also received favourable notices – in fact, it was listed as  one of the "Books of the Year" by "The Spectator". Between 1949 and 1962 she gained great popularity with the "Jill" books for her step-grandchildren, Libs, Sallie, and Pip. Her last book, "Children at the Shop", is a fictionalised memoir of her childhood. Aside from the "Jill" series, most of Ferguson's books are long out of print and have become somewhat rare. The "Jill" books. The "Jill" books are a series of nine children's novels about young equestrienne Jill Crewe and her adventures with her two ponies, Black Boy and Rapide. In recent editions, small changes were  made to the background details to make the books more accessible to later generations; references to cigarette smoking were excised, for example, and "Black Boy" became the more politically correct "Danny Boy". The series takes the protagonist from the age of twelve to fifteen, from a pony novice to a prize-winning rider. In the first book in the series, "Jill's Gymkhana", Jill's father has recently died, and she moves with her mother to a small Pool Cottage near the fictional village of Chatton. Her mother hopes to support them both as a children's author (similarly to  E. Nesbit's classic "The Railway Children"). Jill is at first a social outcast in "horsy" Chatton because she doesn't own a pony and can't ride. When her mother's stories finally begin to sell for £52, however, the first thing she buys is "Black Boy" pony for £12 for her daughter. With hard work and the expert assistance of Martin Lowe, a wheelchair-using former Royal Air Force pilot, Jill becomes a star of Chatton equitation. Jill is grateful for her mother's success; however, as she says repeatedly throughout the series, she "can't  get on" with her mother's books at all, finding them impossibly sweet and whimsical (possibly a veiled criticism of the works of Enid Blyton). In contrast, Ferguson's Jill is an active, independent and witty character who defies post-war expectations for English girls by scorning ladylike pursuits, treating boys her own age as equals, and working hard to achieve her goals. This makes Ferguson's writing outstanding not only in the pony stories genre, but in children's literature generally. Extracts. Mrs. Darcy, a local riding instructor, has had to go to London, and Jill along with some  of her friends, is looking after the riding school in Mrs. Darcy's absence. These responsibilities extend to looking after Blue Smoke, Mrs. Darcy's own gorgeous hunter worth 500 guineas. However, Blue Smoke gets desperately ill in the middle of the night, and Jill is called up to the riding school to help get the vet, along with Wendy. Source: "Jill Has Two Ponies", Chapter 11