Marni Hodgkin
Born
Marion Rous

28 November 1917
New York City, US
Died11 March 2015(2015-03-11) (aged 97)
Cambridge, England
Alma materSwarthmore College
OccupationChildren's book editor
Years active1950–1978
EmployerMacmillan Publishers
SpouseAlan Lloyd Hodgkin
Children4
Parent(s)Francis Peyton Rous
Marion de Kay

Marion "Marni" Hodgkin, Lady Hodgkin (28 November 1917 – 11 March 2015) was an American children's book editor. She was regarded as one of the notable and influential children's book editors of the 1960s.[1][2] She was the daughter of Francis Peyton Rous and wife of Alan Lloyd Hodgkin, both Nobel Prize winners.

Early life

Born Marion Rous in New York City, she was the eldest of three daughters of the American pathologist Francis Peyton Rous, winner of the 1966 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and his wife, Marion de Kay.[3][4][5] She studied at the Dalton School in New York City, and Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.[6]

Career

Hodgkin's career as a children's book editor started in New York, working for Viking Press. She then worked for Rupert Hart-Davis in London.[6]

Hodgkin became Children's Book Editor at Macmillan Publishing Company, which she joined in 1966. Until her arrival, Macmillan had never had a children's literature department, even though its authors included Lewis Carroll and Rudyard Kipling.[4][6] Picture books that she edited included Kevin Crossley-Holland's The Green Children (1969) and Graham Oakley's Church Mouse series.[7] She rejected Roald Dahl's work twice.[7] She retired from Macmillan in 1978 when her husband was named master of Trinity College, Cambridge.[6]

She was a successful writer of children's literature in her own right, including Young Winter's Tales, Student Body (1950), and Dead Indeed (1955).[4] The last two were detective stories, based on her time at Swarthmore College and Viking Press, respectively.[6]

Personal

She married Alan Lloyd Hodgkin in 1944; they had met while he was working at the Rockefeller Institute in 1938.[7][8] They had three daughters and one son. Jonathan Hodgkin became a molecular biologist at Cambridge University. Deborah Hodgkin is a psychologist.[4] Her husband won the Nobel Prize for Physiology in 1963.[6]

She died on 11 March 2015 at the age of 97 in Cambridge, England.[6]

References

  1. ^ Pearson, Dr. Lucy (2013). The Making of Modern Children's Literature in Britain: Publishing and Criticism in the 1960s and 1970s (Revised ed.). Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 198. ISBN 978-1472406057.
  2. ^ Carpenter, Angelica Shirley, ed. (2006). In the Garden: Essays in Honor of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Scarecrow Press. p. 19. ISBN 0810852888.
  3. ^ "Peyton Rous". NNDB. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  4. ^ a b c d "Alan L. Hodgkin". NNDB. Soylent Communications. Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  5. ^ Simmons, John G. (2002). Doctors and Discoveries: Lives that Created Today's Medicine. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 264. ISBN 0618152768.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Thwaite, Ann (25 March 2015). "Marni Hodgkin obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 May 2015.
  7. ^ a b c Barker, Nicolas (25 May 2015). "Marni Hodgkin: Editor known for her integrity and her bestsellers, who helped to transform the world of children's books in the 1960s and 70s". The Independent. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  8. ^ Schoenfeld, Robert L. (2006). Exploring the Nervous System: With Electronic Tools, an Institutional Base, a Network of Scientists. Universal-Publishers. pp. 89, 102. ISBN 1581124619.
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