Posted by Peter H on August 22, 2001 at 12:09:21 from 213.122.188.164:
In Reply to: Re: Resemblences to Lewis's Narnia children posted by Ian on August 22, 2001 at 09:41:51:
The most striking resemblance, to my mind, is between AR's characters and Hugh Lofting's 'Doolittle' characters. Thus, Gub-Gub (the pig) is plainly Roger, Dab-Dab (the duck housekeeper) is Susan, and so on. I am nowhere near the first to spot this. In recent years, the late Ellen Tillinghast (TARSUS) once told me that she had prepared a paper on this topic, but unfortunately, as far as I know she never published it.
Lofting's books were published in the 1920's, so if there was any 'borrowing' I'm afraid it was AR and not Lofting. I like to think it was just coincidence, but the similarity is fairly spooky.