Annie Osborn Annie Osborn i(A46835 works by) (birth name: Annie Delbridge) (a.k.a. Mrs Andrew Rule Osborn; Mrs A. R. Osborn; Annie R. Osborn)
Also writes as: Cinderella ; The Minister's Wife ; Annie O'Neill
Born: Established: 1874 Victoria, ; Died: Ceased: 27 Mar 1948 New York (City), New York (State),
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United States of America (USA),
c
Americas,

Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Annie Osborn was the daughter of Isaac Delbridge of Melbourne, the wife of the Reverend Andrew Rule Osborn (1875-1949), a Presbyterian minister, and mother of eight children including Andrew Delbridge Osborn (1902-1997), the distinguished librarian. As a journalist in Australia she edited the woman's pages of the Age and the Leader : a weekly journal of news, politics, literature, and art in Melbourne, as well as the children's page of the latter using the pseudonym of 'Cinderella'. Osborn also wrote regularly for the Presbyterian journal, The Messenger, and for the Australian Christian World. Her column in The Messenger was written under the pseudonym of 'The Minister's Wife' and greatly advanced religious journalism in Australia.

Osborn wrote children's readers that became so popular they were adopted in Australian schools and adapted for radio broadcasts. She also wrote two mysteries; a political pamphlet, Women and the State (1919?) and Almost Human : reminiscences from the Melbourne Zoo (1917?). Her son compiled A Checklist of Children's Books Written by Annie Osborn (1978). Osborn left Australia in 1927 as her husband pursued clerical opportunities in North America. They lived in the United States, 1927-1932 and 1937-1948, with four intervening years in Canada. While in the United States, Annie Osborn was President of the Mount Vernon Federation of Christian Women.

(Source: 'Mrs. A. R. Osborn, Author, Dies At 73', New York Times (28 March 1948): 48).

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • This author has written many readers for young children. For information about this author's works for children not included in AustLit, see Volume One of Australian Children's Books by Marcie Muir and Kerry White (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1992-2004).
  • Miller (1940): 738 comments that Osborn wrote the Willie Winkie Zoo Books, a series of six booklets under the following titles: Teddy Bear's Birthday Party, Naughty Baby Monkey, The Guinea Pig That Wanted a Tail, Peter's Peach, Fuzzy Wuzzy and Buzzy, and The Quarrel of the Baby Lions.
Last amended 5 Apr 2007 09:56:29
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