easily have been a forgotten figure by the 1970s." He found his widest (largest) audience in the writing of children's books. In 'The Magic Currant Bun', (1953), a boy chases a magic bun, which came out of an oven, through the streets of Paris He enjoyed the bun very much when he caught it in his mouth. His feline magical fantasy, Isle of Cats (illustrated by Gerard Hoffnung), followed in 1955. Lottie (1957), is the story of a talking doll and dog. Edward Ardizzone was the illustrator for this book and Elfrida and the Pig (1959), a story about little girl who is not allowed to play with dolls until she finished her punishment which was to trim her parents' bushes. After a period of writing children's books Symonds returned to biographies in 1959 with Madame Blavatsky, Medium and Magician, a life of the famous Theosophist. This was followed in 1961 with Thomas Brown and the Angels: A Study in Enthusiasm, about the life of a Methodist who becomes involved with the Shakers. Novels followed, beginning with William Waste (1947), The Lady in the Tower (1955), A Girl Among Poets (1957), then a gothic fantasy, Bezill (1962), then Light Over Water (1963), in which a journalist researches into the world of the occult. The subject of With a View on the Palace (1966) is a Russian film director who becomes obsessed with the Royal Family to the point of hiring an apartment near Buckingham Palace so he can observe their movements. In The Stuffed Dog (1967), two girls discover a lifelike doll in an attic which has a man's voice. With 'In Prophesy and the Parasites', 1973, a wealthy widow awaits prospective [sic]. Psychological issues predominate in The Shaven Head (1974), and In Letters from England (1975), a German veteran of Stalingrad humbles himself by applying to work as an au pair for a London doctor. In The Child (1976), a girl starts a new religion. Symonds wrote twenty-six plays but not many were performed. He won critical praise in 1961 for his ITV play, I, Having Dreamt, Awake, about a prodigal son and con-man who returns home from America, after manufacturing a fortune, to impress his poor relations in London. The Poison Maker, his final work for the stage was performed at the Old Red Lion Theatre in 2006, adapted and directed by the actress Vicki Carpenter who played