Iona opie biography

They were also noted anthologists , assembled large collections of children's literature, toys, and games and were regarded as world-famous authorities on children's lore and customs. Their research had a considerable impact on a number of research fields, including Folklore and Childhood Studies and altered perceptions of children's street culture and notions of play , by emphasising the agency of children.

Working outside of academia, the couple worked together closely, from their home firstly near Farnham, Surrey , later in Alton, Hampshire conducting primary fieldwork, library research, and interviews with thousands of children. In pursuing the folklore of contemporary childhood they directly recorded rhymes and games in real time as they were being sung, chanted, or played.

They collaborated on several celebrated books and produced over 30 works. However, an accident whilst training ended his military career. She was educated at Sandecotes School, a boarding school for girls in Parkstone , Dorset. They began researching into the origins of the rhyme, and as their interest grew they began to collect nursery rhyme books.

Initially, the Opies based their research on printed material or previously collected oral sources. In , they published The Oxford Book of Nursery Rhymes , still hailed as the standard work on the subject. From the early s, they increasingly drew on their own field research, carrying out interviews with school-age children via a network of school teachers.

The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren was meant to counter the argument that mass media and the entertainment industry had ruined childhood traditions.

Iona Margaret Balfour Opie, CBE, FBA (13 October – 23 October ) and Peter Mason Opie (25 November – 5 February ) were an English married team of folklorists who applied modern techniques to understanding children's literature and play, in studies such as The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes ().

Speaking in , Iona spoke of working with her husband as being "like two of us in a very small boat and each had an oar and we were trying to row across the Atlantic " and that " [W]e would never discuss ideas verbally except very late at night". Iona Opie continued to research and publish. Iona Opie revised the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes and went onto produce a solo volume, The People in the Playground , which differed by "focusing on the players, rather than the games and rhymes".

Iona Opie died on 23 October In , the Opies were jointly awarded the Coote Lake Medal, the highest honour of The Folklore Society , "for outstanding research and scholarship".