Joan Phipson (1912-2003) was born in Warawee, New South Wales, and spent her childhood travelling between Australia, England and India.  She was educated at Frensham School, and in 1936 was commissioned by the headmistress, Winifred West, to start the Frensham Press.  Their first publication was Frensham student Rosemary Dobson’s, poems.   She studied journalism, and during the war, worked for Reuters in London.  She married a farmer (Colin Fitzhardinge) in 1944, and in the 1960s they moved to a farm, Wongalong, near Mandurama.  

She wrote 30 books, winning the Book of the Year Award of the Children’s Book Council of Australia for Good Luck to the Rider in 1953, winning again with The Family Conspiracy  in 1963. Good Luck to the Rider was her first book, written when she was told to rest when pregnant.  She wrote the book instead. Her earliest books were adventure stories, but she wrote darker, more complex books later in her career, and her contribution to Australian children’s literature was recognised in 1987 when she was awarded the Dromkeen medal. Nicholas Tucker, in her obituary, said:

“Never talking down to her young readers, she preferred instead to travel with them on a voyage of mutual understanding and discovery.”

The bibliography may well not include books of hers which do involve horses: if you know of others, or think I’ve included ones I shouldn’t do please let me know.   Many thanks to Anne Pickles for sending me this:  “Good luck to the rider is probably the only Joan Phipson book that is really a pony book.  There are horses in The Boundary Riders, but they are not the focus of the book and horses are only incidental in her other books dealing with farming families.”

All the books listed below are easy to find.  Boundary Riders was published by Puffin in paperback, and is the easiest, and cheapest to find.

Sources
Joan Phipson’s obituary in The Independent
Austlit
An article on Joan Phipson
Wikipedia article on Joan Phipson

Joan Phipson

It Happened One Summer
Angus & Robertson, 1957
Hamish Hamilton, Antelope Books, 1964, illus Margaret Horder
 

Jennifer arrives in Australia from England, and goes to live with her Aunt, Uncle and cousins on their sheep
farm.  She learns to ride and becomes useful on the farm:  especially when she and some sheep are threatened
with disaster when they are cut off by fire.  Jenny however  knows a secret hiding place, and thanks to this she is
able to stave off disaster.

Good Luck to the Rider
Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1953, illus Margaret Horder
Harcourt, Brace & World, New York, 1968
Pan Macmillan, Sydney, pb, 2001
 

“Good luck to the rider is a story about Australian country life by a writer who is familiar
with the day-to-day activities of a sheep station. There are chapters about country shows,
mustering, camping-out, boarding-school life - all matters of great interest to young readers.
The Trevors of the book are a delightful, unaffected family; their home, comfortable and
unpretentious, is typical of many Australian country properties. Of the Trevor children -
Sheila, George, Clive, and Barbara - it is Barbara, the youngest, with whom the story is
most concerned.”

Bibliography - pony books only

The Family Conspiracy
Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1962, illus Margaret Horder
Constable & Co, London, 1962
Harcourt, Brace & World, New York, 1964
Kestrel Books, 1974
The Boundary Riders and The Family Conspiracy
Australian Children's Classics Collected Editon
John Ferguson Pty Ltd, Sydney, 1981, hb, 370 pp.

Boundary Riders
Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1962
Constable & Co, London, 1962
Harcourt, Brace & World, New York, 1963
Puffin, Harmondsworth, pb, 1965, 1983
Kestrel Books, Harmondsworth, 1974
The Boundary Riders and The Family Conspiracy
Australian Children's Classics Collected Editon
John Ferguson Pty Ltd, Sydney, 1981, hb, 370 pp.

Jane, Bobby and Vincent go off to inspect the fences on the far boundary, but then wander
off to inspect a waterfall and get lost.
 

Six and Silver
Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1954, illus Margaret Horder
Reprinted 1957
 

Five children, and Ted, their guide, make an eventful camping expedition to the Karkoo Ranges.  Silver, Jack’s
sheep-dog comes to the rescue when disaster happens on Mount Calca.  One of the children, Tess, is a city
girl, and the way of life on the station is very strange to her.  Jack, equally, finds it hard to accept his ignorance
of surfing and sailing when they have a holiday by the sea.  fashion as anyone could wish.
 

Compilation: The Boundary Riders & The Family Conspiracy
John Ferguson, Sydney, 1981

Many thanks to Danyele Foster for the photograph.