Geoffrey Trease - Life and Work

Life and Work

Trease was born in Nottingham in 1909. His family were wine merchants but from an early age he decided that he would not follow in his father’s footsteps but instead would be a writer. During his school days at Nottingham High School he wrote stories, poems and a three-act play which the school performed. He won a Classics scholarship to Oxford University and, although he loved university life, he found the tuition dull. After a year he resigned his scholarship and left Oxford for London, intent on becoming a writer. In London, Trease worked at helping slum children. He also joined a left-wing group called the "Promethean Society" whose other members included Hugh Gordon Porteus and Desmond Hawkins. He started to fulfil his ambition to be a writer with the publication of the children’s book, Bows Against the Barons, in 1934.

This was the first of his many historical novels and heralded an approach to writing for young people that was quite radical. Through exciting plots, strong characters (female as well as male) and meticulous attention to detail, he introduced his readers to a historical event or period, enabling them to absorb history effortlessly. His sense of fairness and belief in equality for all is a theme explored in many of his books and, within their historical settings, the discerning reader will recognise many parallels with contemporary issues.

The stories range from Ancient Greece (The Crown of Violet) to more recent times and cover (amongst others) the Middle Ages: (The Red Towers of Granada); Elizabethan England: (Cue for Treason and Cloak for a Spy); Restoration: London (Fire on the Wind and Popinjay Stairs); the French Revolution: (Thunder of Valmy); the Bolshevik Revolution (The White Nights of St Petersburg); and World War II: (Tomorrow Is a Stranger and The Arpino Assignment). Other exciting historical events of the 20th century are covered in Bring Out the Banners, Shadow Under the Sea, Calabrian Quest and Song for a Tattered Flag.

Trease also wrote modern school stories, e.g., the five Black Banner novels set in the Lake District: (the first was No Boats on Bannermere), adult novels, history, plays for radio and television, and biographies. Trease authored a guide aimed at teaching creative writing to young adults, The Young Writer: A Practical Handbook. He wrote three books of autobiography: A Whiff of Burnt Boats (1971), Laughter at the Door (1974), and in the last year of his life, the final part, Farewell the Hills. This was written for his family and friends, and published privately after his death.

He had 113 books published before "deciding to call it a day" at the age of 88, because of illness. Many were translated for foreign markets, including Asia and Europe. In the United States he won the New York Herald Tribune Book Award for the Children’s Spring Festival 1966 for This is Your Century.

He lived in Colwall, very near the Downs School, Great Malvern, but spent the last few years of his life in Bath.