Cecil's Own Book

Author(s): Ann Hawkshaw

Genre(s): Children's Fiction, Single Author

Narrators: Phil Benson

Number of Chapters: 6

Length: 02 hours and 37 minutes

Language: English

Ann Hawkshaw's fourth and final collection was published privately and named for her young grandson, Cecil Wedgwood. Written for children, the volume alternates prose with poetry and is lighter in tone than her earlier work, although poems such as 'The Discontented Stream' and 'The Ambitious Water-Lily' are tinged with a sense of waste. The final piece in the collection, 'In Memoriam', is a moving elegy on childhood death, which alludes to Hawkshaw's loss of three children including Cecil's mother who died shortly after his birth. - Summary by Phil Benson