Ruby Ferguson: Home

Ruby Ferguson’s Jill books are probably the pony books that have remained in print longer than any other pony series, only going out of print in the first years of this century. Although the first Jill book appeared in 1947, they are still popular today, because Jill herself is such a wonderfully vivid character. Ruby Ferguson observed children, and particularly horsey children, brilliantly. Jill sitting in a beautiful dream oblivious to all as she jumps round Olympia in her mind, or sending the coffee pot flying by resting a letter on it; or dreading the visit of her much cleaner, much better behaved Cousin Cecilia, is entirely believable.

The Jill books were all published originally by Hodder and Stoughton, and were illustrated by Caney. Hodder reprinted the hardbacks in a cheaper and smaller hardback edition (The Hampton Library series), and also with laminated boards in the 1970s.

Armada, the children’s paperback division of Collins, were the first publishers of Jill in paperback. Although they did initially print the books with the original Caney covers, the Armada editions went through several different cover illustrators, including Peter Archer and Mary Gernat.

There are nine Jill books. Each title has its own page on this site, with a synopsis and pictures of as many different versions as I have been able to find or borrow. There is sometimes some confusion about exactly how many Jill titles there were: two were re-titled by Knight in the 1980s, Jill Enjoys Her Ponies became Jill and the Runaway, and Pony Jobs for Jill became Challenges for Jill. The books are still the same underneath the title change.

Knight, the paperback division of the original publishers Hodder, presumably realised that they were missing a trick, as they then took over the publication of Jill in paperback. They commissioned another illustrator, Bonar Dunlop, to illustrate some of the books. Black Boy, Jill’s first pony, mysteriously became a piebald in these editions. Whether this was because Bonar Dunlop drew him like that and the books were changed to suit, or whether it was the other way round, I do not know. Ruby Ferguson had died by the time these editions appeared so was not around to object. Some titles were left with the Caney illustrations, and some alas lost all illustrations. As far as I know, the first Knight printings had the full original text, but all printings from the 1970s on were slightly abridged.

Knight originally published the series with covers by Bonar Dunlop in the late 1960s but then commissioned a different artist to produce the rather ditsy covers of the 1970s printings (but despite not liking these covers particularly, they take me back instantly to my childhood. These editions are the ones I read.) . Printings since the 1980s have had photographic covers.

The text however was left pretty much the same (although abridged) until the 1990s when it was decided that Jill needed updating. As with many attempts to shunt books into eras for which they were not intended, these updatings are not particularly successful. Jill as a character stands on her own. The success of the fantasy genre shows that children are perfectly capable of entering different worlds, so why not allow them to enter the different worlds of the 1940s and 50s?

Links
There is a section on Wikipedia about Ruby Ferguson: it’s not attributed, but I suspect it’s by Liz Thiel, who has also written a paper on Ruby Ferguson: alas only accessible if you have access to academic libraries. There is a fascinating general article on pony books on the Collecting Books and Magazines website, which has a section on RF. There’s a quiz on the Jill books.

The excellent Persephone Books have reprinted Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary and it is still in print. It is absolutely nothing like the Jill books, and lacks their humour but it’s an incredibly poignant read. They have a short biography of Ruby Ferguson.