Customer Reviews

BRITISH DOLLS OF THE 1960S: Foreword by Sally Tuffin

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Susan Brewer is a leading authority on British twentieth century dolls and her enthusiasm for her subject shines through in this wonderful book. As a Rosebud collector, I found the section dealing with Rosebud dolls of the Sixties particularly interesting and informative, but there was much else of interest for me. I grew up playing with Amanda Jane, Chatty Cathy and Patch so it was lovely to see them in the book. I learned more about these particular dolls than I had ever known before and looking at their pictures took me straight back to my childhood. How I wish I'd looked after those dolls instead of mistreating them as I did!

The author's writing style is clear, concise and straightforward, making the book easy and enjoyable to read. Her warmth and humour shines through but this book is emphatically about the dolls, not the author herself. If there isn't a vast amount of information about American lines introduced into Britain (an entire chapter running to 16 pages seems fair enough to me), that's probably because there were enough British-made dolls for the author to concentrate on. And I thought the chapter of Retro dolls was worth including as it brings the story full circle.

All in all, I love this book and think it a fine companion piece to the same author's earlier book, British Dolls of the 1950s.

The author is a sincere collector with an interest in placing the dolls in the context of events of the 1960s in the UK. This book is not an identification guide and does not offer complete information on any of the dolls. If you are looking for information on a certain doll you will have to look it up in the index because the chapter titles are unclear. There is some interesting detail about British companies but with such a general focus the information is not in depth. The text is hard to navigate. Many dolls and companies are talked about in more than one chapter so it is hard to get all of the information. I would have liked the chapters to cover specific companies or dolls so that the material would be all in one place and easier to follow. Including a chapter on modern reproductions was confusing and unnecessary. The new dolls are well documented and I wanted this book to shed light on the actual 1960s time period.

I was hoping for more detailed information on how much of an American line was released in the UK. For example, Crissy is given a paragraph but there is no effort to detail the number of outfits or dolls that were available in the UK. Flatsy dolls are given what is titled "An In-Depth Look" but again there is only one black and white picture of a played with doll with no detail of how many were available in the UK. For some reason Dolly Darlings are covered in another chapter and surprisingly, there was no mention of Liddle Kiddle dolls. Other books offer wonderful information about these dolls but I was hoping that this book would tell us something about the details of the UK release but that is not done.

This book is a memoir of the author's dolls and those of her friends. There is a general reference to most of the dolls mentioned with only 1 picture. About half of the pictures are hard to see black and white. The pictures in the book are about the quality of the dolls shown on the cover.

The Table Of Contents is: Foreward by Sally Tuffin, Introduction, Timeline, Chap 1 Through the Ages, Chap 2 England Swings, Chap 3 Small Teens, Chap 4 Cream Of The Crop, Chap 5 Tiny Tears, Chap 6 Major Companies, Chap 7 Lesser Companies, Chap 8 Dolls For Grown-Ups, Chap 9 Clever Dolls, Chap 10 American Invasion, Chap 11 Retro Dolls, Chap 12 Open The Box?, Where to find Dolls in the UK, Dolls' Hospitals, Further Reading, Picture Credits and Index.