Eleanor Farjeon (February 13, 1881- June 5, 1965) was an author of stories for the young at heart of all ages, the most well known of her creations are probably the lyrics to the song Morning Has Broken, written in 1931 for an old Gaelic tune, and highly popularized by the Cat Stevens rendition of it in 1971.

Her father encouraged her writing from the age of five, and at 18 she wrote the lyrics for an operetta "Floretta" to the music created by her older brother, Harry Farjeon , who became a well respected composer.

She had a wide range of friends with great literary talent including D.H. Lawrence, Walter de la Mare, and Robert Frost. For several years she had an unusually intense friendship with the married poet Edward Thomas, until his death in April 1917, during the World War I Battle of Arras. One of her most notable works Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard was written as a gift to him during his military service. She later published much of their correspondence, and gave an account of their relationship in Edward Thomas: The Last Four Years (1958).

In 1956 she won the Hans Christian Andersen Award for her contributions to children's literature.

Eleanor never married, but had a thirty-year relationship with George Earle, an English teacher. After his death in 1949, she had a long relationship with the actor Denys Blakelock , who wrote of it in the book Portrait of a Farjeon (1966).

Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard is now in the public domain and available through the Project Gutenberg link below.

Partial bibliography

• Pan-Worship and Other Poems (1908)
• The Soul of Kol Nikon (1914)
• Arthur Rackham: The Wizard at Home (1914)
• Gypsy and Ginger (1920)
• Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard (1921)
• Faithful Jenny Dove and Other Tales (1925)
• Mighty Men: Achilles to Julius Caesar, Beowulf to Harold (1925)
• Nuts and May (1925)
• Faithful Jenny Dove and Other Tales (1925)
• Italian Peepshow (1926)
• Kaleidoscope (1928)
• The Tale of Tom Tiddler (1929)
• Tales from Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales Done in Prose (1930)
• The Old Nurse's Stocking Basket (1931)
• The Fair of St.James: A Fantasia (1932)
• Perkin the Pedlar (1932)
• Jim at the Corner and Other Stories (1934)
• A Nursery in the Nineties (1935) (Autobiography)
• Humming Bird: A Novel (1936)
• Ten Saints (1936)
• Martin Pippin in the Daisy Field (1937)
• The Wonders of Herodotus (1937)
• One Foot in Fairyland: Sixteen Tales (1938)
• The New Book of Days (1941)
• The Glass Slipper (1944) (Play)
• Ariadne and the Bull (1945)
• The Silver Curlew (1949)(Play)
• The Little Bookroom (1955)
• Edward Thomas: The Last Four Years (1958)

External links

• Eleanor Farjeon: A Story Writer
• List of Stories by Farjeon
• Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard at Project Gutenberg
• Online version of Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard, with illustrations