Janet Herron Hughes
The Frosty Filly
C.S. Hammond & Co, New Jersey, 1961, illus Charles J. Mazoujian
Frances D’Affrey is an orphaned English girl. She disguises herself as a boy and
calls
herself Franky after she runs away from her stuff aunt in New York City. She’s
looking for
an American friend of her father’s, whom she met when he was stationed
in England
during WWII. She knows him only as “Dinky”, but her father said once “If
anything happens
to me, Dinky will take care of you. He has the best pack of fox
hounds in America.” She
finds work at a Virginian stables because she thinks it’s
most likely to bring her into contact
with Dinky and because it’s work she can do.
Janet Herron Hughes was born in Cincinnati Ohio, and moved to Washington DC when she was eleven. While she was at the fashionable Miss Madeira’s School for Girls, she persuaded her parents to let her spend weekends and holidays in the country with a friend, w here they looked after the horses, and hunted. She began a diary when she was young, full of stories about the horses and hunts she knew, many of which she used for the hunting episodes in The Frosty Filly. As far as I know, this is the only book she wrote.
She married and had four children, and settled on a farm near Baltimore, Maryland, where as well as writing, she painted portraits, having attended the Cocoran Art School.
Many thanks to Susan Bourgeau for all her help with the picture and information on the author and the book’s contents.
Finding the book: Frosty Filly had no UK publication. A very good first, not ex
library, might be expensive, but reasonably priced ex-
Sources:
Dustjacket of The Frosty Filly
