Mary Cadogan, who has died aged 86, was a literary historian, chronicling the history of children's books, romantic and detective fiction and many other aspects of the popular culture of the last two centuries. A writer, critic and broadcaster, she was a passionate advocate for the pleasures of times past, who delighted in passing on her love of writers and their work, as if sitting beside the child-inside-us-all and sharing some much-thumbed book or comic that had amused her, thrilled her or caught and excited her imagination.
Born in Ealing, west London, she was the daughter of Thomas Summersby, a policeman, and his wife Ivy, a nurse. The family later moved to Kent where Mary was educated at Bromley county grammar school for girls, matriculating in 1944.
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