Mary Norton (author)

Kathleen Mary Norton, née Pearson (10 December 1903 – 29 August 1992), was an English author. Her books include The Borrowers series.

Biography
Norton was the daughter of a physician, and was raised in a Georgian house at the end of the High Street in Leighton Buzzard. The house now consists of part of Leighton Middle School, known within the school as The Old House, and was reportedly the setting of her novel The Borrowers. She married Robert Charles Norton on 4 September 1946 and had four children, two boys and two girls. Her second husband was Lionel Boncey, whom she married in 1970. She began working for the War Office in 1940 before the family moved temporarily to the United States.

She began writing while working for the British Purchasing Commission in New York duing the Second World War. Her first book was The Magic Bed Knob; or, How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons published in 1943, which, together with the sequel Bonfires and Broomsticks, became the basis for the Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

Norton died of a heart attack in Bideford, Devon, England on 29 August 1992.

Works

 * The Magic Bed Knob; or, How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons (1945)
 * Bonfires and Broomsticks (1947)
 * The Borrowers (1952)
 * The Borrowers Afield (1955)
 * The Borrowers Afloat (1959)
 * The Borrowers Aloft  (1961)
 * Poor Stainless (1966)
 * Are All the Giants Dead? (1975)
 * The Borrowers Avenged (1982)
 * The Bread and Butter Stories (1998)