The Borrowers

The Borrowers

Stanley cover of first edition
Author	Mary Norton
Illustrator	Diana L. Stanley (first)[1] Beth and Joe Krush (US)[2]
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	The Borrowers
Genre	Children's fantasy novel
Publisher	J. M. Dent (first); Harcourt, Brace (US)[2]
Publication date	1952 (first) 1953 (US)[2]
Media type	Print (hardcover)
Pages	159pp (first); 180pp (US)[2]
OCLC	7557055
LC Class	PZ7.N8248 Bd 1952[2]
Followed by	The Borrowers Afield

The Borrowers is a children's fantasy novel by the English author Mary Norton, published by Dent in 1952. It features a family of tiny people who live secretly in the walls and floors of an English house and "borrow" from the big people in order to survive. The Borrowers also refers to the series of five novels (The Borrowers and four sequels) that feature the same family after they leave "their" house.^[1]

The Borrowers won the 1952 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's outstanding children's book by a British subject.^[3] In the 70th anniversary celebration of the medal in 2007 it was named one of the top ten Medal-winning works, selected by a panel to compose the ballot for a public election of the all-time favourite.^[4]

Harcourt, Brace and Company published it in the U.S. the next year with illustrations by Beth and Joe Krush.^[1][2]

Series

All five Borrowers novels feature a family surnamed Clock: Pod, Homily, Arrietty. In the first book they live in a house reportedly based on The Cedars where Norton was raised. The sequels are titled alliteratively and alphabetically: The Borrowers Afield (1955), The Borrowers Afloat (1959), The Borrowers Aloft (1961), and The Borrowers Avenged (1982). All were originally published by J. M. Dent in hardcover editions.^[5] Puffin Books published a 700-page trade paperback omnibus edition in 1983, The Complete Borrowers Stories^[6] with a short introduction by Norton.^[1]

The primary cause of trouble and source of plot is the interaction between the minuscule Borrowers and the "human beans", whether the human motives are kind or selfish. The main character is teenage Arrietty, who often begins relationships with Big People that have chaotic effects on the lives of herself and her family, causing her parents to react with fear and worry.

As a result of Arrietty's curiosity and friendships with Big People, her family are forced to move their home several times from one place to another, making their lives more adventurous than the average Borrower would prefer. After escaping from their home under the kitchen floorboards of an old English manor they finally settle down in the home of a caretaker on the grounds of an old church.

Along the way, they meet more characters: other Borrowers, including a young man around Arrietty's age who lives outdoors and whose only memory of his family is the descriptive phrase, "Dreadful Spiller", which he uses as a name (introduced in The Borrowers Afield), the Harpsichord family who are relatives of the Clock family, and Peregrine ("Peagreen") Overmantel; and also Big People such as Mild Eye the gypsy, Tom Goodenough, the gardener's son, and Miss Menzies, a sweet but overly helpful woman.

The short, separate book Poor Stainless (1966) was revised as a novelette and re-published posthumously with a short author's note in 1994.^[7] The narrative, told by Homily to Arrietty, occurs before the first of the full-length Borrower novels, and concerns a small adventure Stainless has when he gets lost. (Like most Borrower names "borrowed" from human objects, Stainless is named after items in the kitchen cutlery drawer.)

Summary

The story begins with young Kate sewing a quilt with her aunt Mrs May. As they knit the quilt, Mrs May tells Kate about her brother who told her about the Borrowers. She begins by telling her the story of fourteen-year-old Arrietty Clock who lived under the floorboards of a house with her father Pod and mother Homily. As Borrowers, they survive through Pod's "borrowing" of items from the "human beans" who live in the home above the floor. But one day Pod came home shaken after borrowing a toy tea cup. After sending Arrietty to bed, Homily finds out that he has been "seen" by a human bean: a boy who had been sent from India to live with his great-aunt while recovering from an illness. Remembering the fate of their niece Eggletina, who wandered away and never returned after her father had been seen and the big people had brought in a cat, Pod and Homily decide to tell Arrietty. In the course of the ensuing conversation, Homily realizes that Arrietty ought to be allowed to go borrowing with Pod.

Several days later, Pod and Arrietty go on a borrowing trip to retrieve fibres from a doormat for a scrubbing brush. Arrietty wanders outside where she meets the Boy, and develops a friendship with him. At one point, Arrietty tells the Boy that there cannot be very many of his kind but there are many of her kind. He disagrees and tells her of times when he had seen hundreds and even thousands of big people all in one place. Arrietty realizes that she cannot prove that there are any other Borrowers left in the world besides herself and her parents, and is upset. The Boy offers to take a letter to a badger sett two fields away where her Uncle Hendreary, Aunt Lupy, and their children are supposed to have emigrated. On a later borrowing trip, she manages to slip the letter under the doormat where the Boy agreed to look for it.

Meanwhile, Arrietty has learned from Pod and Homily that they get a "feeling" when big people approach. She is concerned that she didn't have a feeling when the Boy approached, so she practises by going to a certain passage over which the cook, Mrs Driver, often stands. She overhears Driver and the gardener, Crampfurl, discussing the Boy. Mrs Driver is annoyed that the boy continually disturbs the doormat and Crampfurl is concerned about him after seeing him in a field calling for "Uncle something", after the boy had asked him if there were any badger setts in the field. Crampfurl is convinced the boy is keeping a pet ferret.

Arrietty becomes anxious and sets off on her own to find the Boy. As it turns out, he did find her letter, delivered it, and returned with a response: a mysterious note asking her to tell Aunt Lupy to come back. Pod then discovers Arrietty talking to the Boy and takes her home. Pod and Homily are frightened because the Boy will probably figure out where they live. They turn out to be right, but the Boy, instead of wanting to harm them, brings them gifts of some doll's house furniture from the nursery. They experience a period of "borrowing beyond all dreams of borrowing" as the Boy offers them gift after gift. In return, Arrietty is allowed to go outside and read aloud to him.

Mrs Driver, in the meantime, notices a few items missing and thinks someone is playing a joke on her. She stays up late and catches the boy bringing his nightly gift to his new friends. She sees the Borrowers and finds their home. The Boy tries to rescue the Borrowers, but Mrs Driver locks him in the nursery. At the end of three days, the Boy is to be sent back to India. Mrs Driver cruelly takes him to the kitchen before he goes to see the ratcatcher to smoke the Borrowers out of their home. The Boy manages to slip away and break off the grating outside. However, he never gets to see the Borrowers' escape since the cab comes to take him away before he has a chance.

His sister (a young Mrs May, the narrator at the beginning of the book) later visits the home herself, goes to the badgers' sett, and leaves gifts there, which are gone the next time she checks. However, the novel ends when she tells Kate that when she returns to the badgers' sett she finds a book she believes to be Arrietty's book of "Memoranda" – and that the handwritten es look like a crescent moon with a stroke in the middle, the same way her brother used to write them.

Characters

Borrowers

• Arrietty Clock – An adventurous fourteen-year-old Borrower girl who is not allowed to go borrowing with her father until her mother decides to let her. Then she meets the Boy. She knows how to read, owns a collection of pocket-sized books, and enjoys looking out of the grating and writing in her diary.
• Pod Clock – Arrietty's father and, according to his wife, the most talented Borrower.
• Homily Clock – Arrietty's mother. She has a bony nose and untidy hair (though she starts curling it later on), is often cross, has a taste for fine things (such as dollhouse furniture), and is terrified of the thought of emigrating and living in a badger sett.
• Hendreary Clock – Arrietty's uncle. He was on the fireplace mantel when the maid came to dust and attempted to pass himself off as a knick-knack but sneezed when he was dusted. He later emigrated to a badger sett with his family. He went fishing in a bowl of soup to see if he could reel up any chunks of food from the soup.
• Lupy (Rain-Pipe Harpsichord) Clock – Uncle Hendreary's wife. Homily describes her as apt to put on airs because of her association with the Harpsichord family. She has three sons and a stepdaughter, Eggletina.
• Eggletina Clock – Uncle Hendreary's daughter by his first marriage. She wandered away and disappeared after a cat had been brought into the house, leading her family to think the cat ate her. Eggletina is used as a warning to Arrietty about what could happen if she is 'seen'; however, in the second book Eggletina is discovered alive and well.

Big People

• Kate – A "wild, untidy, self-willed little girl" of 10 years. It is through Kate that the story of The Borrowers is told. Not much of Kate is in the middle of the story.
• The Boy – At ten years old he leaves his home in India to recover from an illness at the country home of his great-aunt near Leighton Buzzard. He discovers and befriends the Borrowers.
• Mrs May; Aunt May – The Boy's sister. As an elderly woman, she tells Kate the story of the Borrowers that was told to her by her brother.
• Great Aunt Sophy – The Boy's bedridden, elderly great-aunt who has a penchant for Fine Old Pale Madeira. Pod often comes to her room to borrow when she has had too much to drink - she believes that Pod is a hallucination. Also referred to as "Her".
• Mrs Driver – The housekeeper and cook. She is described by the Boy as fat with a mustache and is constantly threatening to "take her slipper" to him.
• Crampfurl – The gardener.
• Rosa Pickhatchet – A maid who once worked in the house. She gave notice after seeing Pod's brother, Hendreary Clock.

Themes

• A. N. Wilson considered the work as in part an allegory of post-war Britain – with its picture of a diminished people living in an old, half-empty, decaying “Big House”.^[8]

Adaptations

There have been several screen adaptations of The Borrowers:

• The Borrowers: a 1973 American made-for-TV movie in the Hallmark Hall of Fame.
• The Borrowers: a 1992 BBC TV series and its 1993 sequel The Return of the Borrowers, both starring Ian Holm and Penelope Wilton.
• The Borrowers: a 1997 film with a British/American cast including Tom Felton, John Goodman, Jim Broadbent, Celia Imrie and Mark Williams.
• Arrietty: a 2010 Japanese animated film from Studio Ghibli, known as The Secret World of Arrietty in North America.^[9]
• The Borrowers: a 2011 BBC production starring Stephen Fry, Victoria Wood, and Christopher Eccleston.^[10]

See also

• The Littles, a later series by John Peterson, also featuring a family of tiny people.

References

External links

• The Borrowers in libraries (WorldCat catalog) – first US edition
• The Borrowers directory at the Internet Movie Database