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The Five Little Peppers is a book series created by American author Margaret Sidney which was published 1881 to 1916. It covers the lives of the five children in their native state and develops with their rescue by a wealthy gentleman who takes an interest in the family.
The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew tells how the Peppers live, learn, and play in their little brown house. They are poor, and Mamsie must work constantly to keep the wolf from the door, but their lives are unexpectedly happy.
When the youngest, Phronsie, is kidnapped by an organ grinder, she is rescued by young Jasper King and his dog Prince, both of whom soon become fast friends with the Peppers. The family so charms Jasper and his father that one by one they are invited to visit the Kings' home in the city and soon the entire family is living there. Mr. King makes Mrs. Pepper his housekeeper and does everything in his power to entertain and educate the children.
Though the Kings surround the Pepper children with luxury—in 5 years Phronsie collects 200 dolls—the values of hard work, humility, and togetherness are still firmly enforced by their mother. This puts them in a curious position in society. Though they live with an upper-class father and son, the older children are aware they’ll someday work for their livings. This makes them willing to befriend anyone, from street girls to grocers’ sons.
The stories continue with the Peppers' adventures in school, abroad, and even back in the little brown house where their thoughts and hearts will always turn. The series spans 17 years, beginning with Phronsie as a three-year-old and finishing with her as a 20-year-old young lady.
Mrs. Pepper (Later Mrs. Fisher): Called "Mamsie" by her children, Mrs. Pepper is a widow struggling to keep her five children healthy and educated. She is the family's moral backbone and her children are completely devoted to her. She eventually weds Dr. Adoniram Fisher with her brood's full approval.
Ben (Ebenezer): The eldest of the five. Ben is an avid scholar but willingly puts aside schooling in favor of providing for the family. He manages the younger children with his sister and will sacrifice anything for them. He is eleven at the start of The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.
Polly (Mary): The elder Pepper girl, aged 10 at the start of The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. Polly is a busy, bright, cheerful girl who makes the family's life as happy as possible. She loves music, flowers, and her baby sister with equal passion.
Joel: The middle Pepper, the middle boy, the most active. He is 8 in The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. Joel is an enthusiastic sportsman who loves treats, parties, and entertainment. He is the most troublesome, often getting himself into mischief or causing others grief with the things he says. He settles down somewhat in college and becomes active in a student church group.
Davie (David): The youngest boy and the quietest sibling. Davie allows the world to go on around him as he calmly absorbs the family's doings. An obedient student, he's equally willing to give up anything to make Joel or Ben happy. Somewhat of a dandy in late adolescence, he is teasingly nicknamed "Davina" by other students.
Phronsie (Sophronia): The baby and pet of the family. The series opens with Phronsie as a wide-eyed blonde three-year-old who sees the good in nearly everyone and is anxious to aid anyone in need. She calls her dolls, Baby and Seraphina, her children and treats them as such. She is especially devoted to Polly and Mr. King, whom she calls "poor sick man."
Mr. J. Horatio King, Senior: The Pepper family’s benefactor. He is an older widower and in uncertain health at the beginning of the series. Bringing the Peppers into his household revitalizes him. Though quick of temper and firm of opinion, "Grandpapa" is a family man who seeks to ease every pain and concern in the lives of his children and the Peppers.
Jasper (Jasper, Junior, called "Jappy"): Mr. King’s son. Jasper is an eager boy who is just as willing to go sledding with Ben as to bake pies with Polly. Jasper and his dog Prince befriend the Peppers when he rescues Phronsie from an organ grinder and his monkey, and his affection for them ultimately leads him to request their company permanently in the household by marrying Polly.
The Whitneys: Marian King Whitney, Mr. King’s adult daughter, and her boys Percy, Van, and Dick Whitney make up the rest of the King household. Mr. Whitney ultimately turns out to be Mrs. Pepper’s cousin, making the Peppers distant relatives of the family. Mrs. Whitney is a second mother to the Pepper children. The three boys, while infatuated with Polly, are frequently at odds with one another and Joel.
In order of publication, the Five Little Peppers books are as follows (publication dates follow in parentheses):
Margaret Sidney felt she had completed the books with the publication of the fourth book: Phronsie Pepper, and stated as much in her introduction to the book. Letters from readers around the world prompted her to continue writing about the Peppers, which she did for another nineteen years. All of the later books take place much before the third book in the original series. In chronological order, rather than by publication date, the six key books would be read approximately in this sequence:
The other six books are "background" and are set about the time of the first three books listed above chronologically. Since they were written many years later, some situations in them are at variance with those same situations as described in the earlier written books.
The Pepper books were the inspiration for a brief series of feature films produced by Columbia Pictures in 1939 and 1940. The four films were vehicles for Columbia's juvenile star Edith Fellows, who played Polly. The rest of the children were Charles Peck (perhaps best known as the rich kid in the film version of Dead End ) as Ben, Tommy Bond of Our Gang as Joey, Bobby Larson as Davie, and Dorothy Ann Seese as Phronsie. Clarence Kolb played Mr. King in the first two films, succeeded by Pierre Watkin in the remaining two; King's son Jasper was played in all four films by Ronald Sinclair, the former Ra Hould of late-1930s features.
The first Five Little Peppers film was devoted mostly to Edith Fellows as the senior member of the Pepper brood, and was not an exact reflection of the book. The other three films were homespun family stories with elements of comedy and drama. Edith Fellows carried the series, although by the time it lapsed, five-year-old Dorothy Ann Seese had become an audience favorite and was billed at the head of the cast, second only to Fellows.
The Pepper screenplays had little to do with the original books, but the four films were popular with moviegoers. The films remained in circulation for many years, and Columbia reissued two of them in 1946 as part of an industry-wide "children's film library" for weekend matinées. The series was also reprinted on 16mm film for schools, libraries, and nontheatrical showings. In order of their original release, the films are:
The Pepper books are referenced in the TV series Fargo —Season 2, Episode 1. Specifically, the character Lou Solverson is reading from Chapter 4 of Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. The chapter is entitled "Trouble for the Little Brown House." The chapter carries an epigram from the New Testament book of Matthew: "I was sick, and ye visited me."
The Railway Children is a children's book by Edith Nesbit, originally serialised in The London Magazine during 1905 and published in book form in the same year. It has been adapted for the screen several times, of which the 1970 film version is the best known.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter that follows mischievous and disobedient young Peter Rabbit as he gets into, and is chased around, the garden of Mr. McGregor. He escapes and returns home to his mother, who puts him to bed after offering him chamomile tea. The tale was written for five-year-old Noel Moore, the son of Potter's former governess, Annie Carter Moore, in 1893. It was revised and privately printed by Potter in 1901 after several publishers' rejections, but was printed in a trade edition by Frederick Warne & Co. in 1902. The book was a success, and multiple reprints were issued in the years immediately following its debut. It has been translated into 36 languages, and with 45 million copies sold it is one of the best-selling books in history.
Pollyanna is a 1913 novel by American author Eleanor H. Porter, considered a classic of children's literature. The book's success led to Porter soon writing a sequel, Pollyanna Grows Up (1915). Eleven more Pollyanna sequels, known as "Glad Books", were later published, most of them written by Elizabeth Borton or Harriet Lummis Smith. Further sequels followed, including Pollyanna Plays the Game by Colleen L. Reece, published in 1997. Due to the book's fame, "Pollyanna" has become a byword for someone who, like the title character, has an unfailingly optimistic outlook; a subconscious bias towards the positive is often described as the Pollyanna principle. Despite the current common use of the term to mean "excessively cheerful", Pollyanna and her father played the glad game as a method of coping with the real difficulties and sorrows that, along with luck and joy, shape every life.
Anneke Wills is an English actress, best known for her role as the Doctor Who companion Polly in the long-running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who.
Tabitha St. Germain, formerly known as Paulina Gillis Germain and also known as Tabitha or Kitanou St. Germain, is a Canadian actress and comedian. She is known for a variety of roles across many different shows. She has been actively doing voice-overs for animated series and films, video games, and commercials since 1985. Her best known roles include Fllay Allster in the Ocean dub of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Scary Godmother in the Scary Godmother television film duology, the eponymous character in the PBS Kids series Martha Speaks, and the speaking voice of Rarity among other characters in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse is a book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter and first published by Frederick Warne & Co. in 1910. The book tells the story of a wood mouse named Mrs. Thomasina Tittlemouse and her efforts to keep her house in order, despite the appearance of uninvited visitors. A particularly annoying visitor for Mrs Tittlemouse is Mr. Jackson, a sloppy toad.
Elsie Dinsmore is a children's book series written by Martha Finley (1828–1909) between 1867 and 1905. Of Finley's two girls' fiction series, the "Mildred Keith" books were more realistic and autobiographical in nature, while the "Elsie Dinsmore" books, which were better sellers, were more idealistic in plot. A revised and adapted version of the Elsie books was published in 1999.
Mrs. Pepperpot, known in Japanese as Spoon Oba-san, is a Japanese anime television series, based on the children's books of Mrs. Pepperpot by the Norwegian author Alf Prøysen. The series was broadcast on NHK General TV from April 4, 1983, to March 30, 1984, spanning a total of 130 10-minute episodes.
Harriett Lothrop was an American author also known by her pseudonym Margaret Sidney. In addition to writing popular children's stories, she ran her husband Daniel Lothrop's publishing company after his death. After they bought The Wayside country house, they worked hard to make it a center of literary life.
The Tale of Benjamin Bunny is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter, and first published by Frederick Warne & Co. in September 1904. The book is a sequel to The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902), and tells of Peter's return to Mr. McGregor's garden with his cousin Benjamin to retrieve the clothes he lost there during his previous adventure. In Benjamin Bunny, Potter deepened the rabbit universe she created in Peter Rabbit, and, in doing so, suggested the rabbit world was parallel to the human world but complete and sufficient unto itself.
The Cocoanuts is a musical with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin and a book by George S. Kaufman, with additional text by Morrie Ryskind.
Pollyanna is a 1960 American comedy-drama film starring child actress Hayley Mills, Jane Wyman, Karl Malden, and Richard Egan in a story about a cheerful orphan changing the outlook of a small town. The film was written and directed by David Swift, based on the 1913 novel Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter. The film won Hayley Mills an Academy Juvenile Award. It was the last film of actor Adolphe Menjou.
Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom is a British preschool animated television series. The show was created by Neville Astley and Mark Baker, and produced by Astley Baker Davies and by Entertainment One. Many of the voice actors who worked on Peppa Pig have lent their voices to the show; these include John Sparkes, Sarah Ann Kennedy, David Rintoul and David Graham. The music is produced by Julian Nott, who is noted for his Wallace and Gromit, Bing and Peppa Pig scores. Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom is the third show to be produced by Astley Baker Davies.
Edith Marilyn Fellows was an American actress who became a child star in the 1930s. Best known for playing orphans and street urchins, Fellows was an expressive actress with a good singing voice. She made her screen debut at the age of five in Charley Chase's film short Movie Night (1929). Her first credited role in a feature film was The Rider of Death Valley (1932). By 1935, she had appeared in over twenty films. Her performance opposite Claudette Colbert and Melvyn Douglas in She Married Her Boss (1935) won her a seven-year contract with Columbia Pictures, the first such contract offered to a child.
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew is a 1939 American black-and-white children's comedy drama film directed by Charles Barton, produced by Jack Fier and based on the novel of the same name by Margaret Sidney. Starring Edith Fellows, Charles Peck, Tommy Bond, Jimmy Leake and Dorothy Anne Seese, it is the first of four Five Little Peppers films.
Five Little Peppers in Trouble is a 1940 American black and white comedy-drama film. It was the last Five Little Peppers film.
Out West with the Peppers is a 1940 American Western comedy film. It is the third Five Little Peppers film.
Five Little Peppers at Home is a 1940 American drama black and white film. It is the second Five Little Peppers film.
Angelina Ballerina is a British animated preschool children's television series based on the Angelina Ballerina series of children's books by author Katharine Holabird and illustrator Helen Craig. The series is about a young mouse named Angelina Mouseling who loves dancing ballet, her family, and her classmates. Finty Williams performed the voice of Angelina and Judi Dench performed the voice of Miss Lilly.
Wide Awake was a monthly American children's magazine, founded in 1875 by Daniel Lothrop. It published stories written by Margaret Sidney, Edward Everett Hale, Sarah Orne Jewett, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, and Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman. Wide Awake was illustrated by many well known artists including Howard Pyle, William Thomas Smedley, Sol Eytinge Jr. and Frank T. Merrill. The magazine was based in Boston.
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