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There’s no denying Auntie Robbo was rather a gay old lady, frivolous in some ways…
Hector is an 11-year old boy living near Edinburgh with his great Auntie Robbo, who is in her eighties. When a woman calling herself his step-mother arrives from England, Hector and Auntie Robbo realise that they have to run away. The chase leads all over the Highlands of Scotland. And so, they narrowly escape police and the authorities, and adopt three homeless children on the way. It was originally refused for publication in London because it was deemed critical of the English and ‘too Scottish’. However, Viking Press decided to publish it in the United States in 1941. Ironically, the published edition displayed an apology on the jacket of the book that read, ‘without the slightest shadow or suspicion of a moral.’ Nonetheless, after its success in print, Constable took it on in 1959. Later, the book was published in India, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, and Germany.
There’s no denying Auntie Robbo was rather a gay old lady, frivolous in some ways…
Hector is an 11-year old boy living near Edinburgh with his great Auntie Robbo, who is in her eighties. When a woman calling herself his step-mother arrives from England, Hector and Auntie Robbo realise that they have to run away. The chase leads all over the Highlands of Scotland. And so, they narrowly escape police and the authorities, and adopt three homeless children on the way. It was originally refused for publication in London because it was deemed critical of the English and ‘too Scottish’. However, Viking Press decided to publish it in the United States in 1941. Ironically, the published edition displayed an apology on the jacket of the book that read, ‘without the slightest shadow or suspicion of a moral.’ Nonetheless, after its success in print, Constable took it on in 1959. Later, the book was published in India, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, and Germany.
‘Extravagant and rollicking… It has the complete irresponsibility which is only possible from a serious writer.’
‘Immensely entertaining story, one of my favourite books as a child, I still think it very engaging now. Auntie Robbo is a marvellous character, and her adventures with Hector remain as amusing to read now as they were over forty years ago.’
‘Taking us all over the Highlands of Scotland, [Auntie Robbo] appeals to the imagination of children and the impulse to be free of authority. I am delighted and excited to be publishing it and to show off the great spirit of Auntie Robbo herself. The story has more resonance today, when there are even more rules governing children’s lives, and the need to escape into the open air and Highland hills is more imperative than ever.’
‘It’s a novel about the human appetite for life, about the delight in sharing and companionship,…about heroic eccentricity versus agents of conformity.’
There’s no denying Auntie Robbo was rather a gay old lady, frivolous in some ways…
