William Mayne Summary

It has been a repeated theme of critics of William Mayne's novels that, while his writing is excellent, it is too difficult for most young readers and will never find a large audience with them. Some ... Read more

Critical Essay by Jennie D. Lindquist First published in England in 1955, [A Swarm in May] has a most unusual plot. It is based on an old tradition: the youngest Singing Boy is always the Beekeeper; ... Read more

Critical Essay by Margaret Meek The pace of the plot of William Mayne's latest tour de force [The Battlefield] is slow and measured, country style…. The climax is conceivable only becau... Read more

Critical Essay by Colin Field Once one has accepted the premise that is is possible to see backwards and forwards in time, and to conjure people from the past and the future, the logic of [Over the H... Read more

Critical Essay by Houston L. Maples Confirming the impression made by Earthfasts, William Mayne shows again the broadening of his talents in [The Hill Road, an] artful fantasy of superimposed eras in... Read more

Critical Essay by Eleanor Cameron William Mayne's Earthfasts, which puts him triumphantly among that small group who have shown such an audacious and original grasp of the possibilities of tim... Read more

Critical Essay by Margaret Meek The inner weather of a Mayne novel is as shifting as a spring day and inspires an expressive response rather than a report. As usual [in Ravensgill] the plot offers li... Read more

Critical Essay by Leon Garfield William Mayne's Ravensgill … has already been praised highly elsewhere; but that is no reason for not praising it again. It is, I feel, his most consider... Read more

Critical Essay by Pat Smyth With [Royal Harry], the adult reader finds his attention gripped with the same intensity as that of any child. This is an ideal situation for a genuine sharing of its expe... Read more

Critical Essay by Frank Eyre William Mayne's name must inevitably appear frequently in any discussion of the late twentieth-century children's book. Not only because, despite conflictin... Read more

Critical Essay by Paul Heins [In A Game of Dark Mayne] again illustrates his technical mastery of plot and his skill in manipulating the elements of time-fantasy…. The whole story alternates b... Read more

Critical Essay by Margaret Meek The day you start work is the initiation ritual. For Mason Ross [in The Incline] it means more than 'going to business' at the bank; it includes passing ... Read more

Critical Essay by Hamish Fotheringham [Mayne's] first published story was Follow the Footprints, the story of a "treasure hunt," a motif which William Mayne has developed with fr... Read more

Critical Essay by Penelope Farmer William Mayne is one of the most considerable, and certainly in some respects the most interesting writer for children now and [A Game of Dark] is undoubtedly his be... Read more

Critical Essay by Jane Langton [No] one merges past and present more seamlessly and masterfully than William Mayne. In some of his settings, the past is embodied in relics and monuments which litter ... Read more

Critical Essay by Charles Sarland William Mayne is the great "problem" amongst modern children's writers. Everyone seems agreed that he is a writer of great subtlety and complexi... Read more

Critical Essay by Natalie Babbitt At first, a William Mayne story always sounds to me as if it had been translated from some other tongue by someone with a rather thin gift for languages. The structu... Read more

Critical Essay by Myles Mcdowell In A Parcel of Trees Mayne evokes a languid, summery world of long and lazy days and slow quest. He unfolds his story unhurriedly, drowsing and droning, so it seems. ... Read more

Critical Essay by Mary Cadogan and Patricia Craig William Mayne has devised a kind of dialogue in which the character speaks principally to himself, to clarify some facet of his personality for his o... Read more

Critical Essay by Margery Fisher In Max's Dream William Mayne has returned to the Corn-wall of A Year and a Day, to the 1890's when, in a small community tightly organised, thirteen-yea... Read more

Critical Essay by Margery Fisher At first sight Alice Dyson might seem to be in the same position in William Mayne's It [as the character of Anne in Robert Westall's The Watch House]. B... Read more

Critical Essay by Diana Waggoner The magical blending of times and spells in [Earthfasts] is made more effective by Mayne's matter-of-fact attitude. His tight, intricate plotting, skillful pro... Read more

Critical Essay by Margery Fisher Set in the Yorkshire dales, [A Grass Rope] is a treasure hunt, like so many of William Mayne's books, but with the difference that one of the characters, young... Read more

Critical Essay by Robert Bell In both [A Parcel of Trees and Sand] the author's brilliant story-telling, character drawing, dialogue and perfectly-timed climaxes evoke, as always, the highest ... Read more

Critical Essay by Geoffrey Trease You either surrender to Mayne's spell or impatiently don't. Myself, I admire so many of his talents singly—his poet's eye and ear, his wo... Read more