The children’s novel The Borrowers was published in 1952 by Mary Norton (who also authored Bedknobs and Broomsticks) and has remained enduringly popular ever since, winning the Library Association’s Carnegie Medal, among other accolades. Mary Norton had spent her childhood in a large family house in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, England, and conceived the notion of miniature people living their own parallel secret lives in the house from the games she played on the floor with small dolls. She called these six-inch-tall folk “Borrowers” because they relied upon salvaging discarded oddments from the “human beans” with whom they shared the house, to refashion as furniture and tools.

The Borrowers introduces the diminutive Clock family. Pod, Homily, and their daughter Arrietty live behind the kitchen clock, out of sight of the full-sized humans who occupy the house, entirely oblivious of the Clocks’ existence. Trouble ensues after Arrietty befriends the human boy who lives upstairs. The adventures are continued in The Borrowers Afield (1955), in which Pod and his family face the perils of the great outdoors after being obliged to leave their home, and in The Borrowers Afloat (1959), in which the Borrowers are made homeless once again until rescued by their equally tiny friend Spiller and installed in a new home by the river (a kettle). In The Borrowers Aloft (1961) the family think their troubles are over when they move into a new home in a model village, only to find themselves pursued by the wicked Mr. Platter, who wants live inhabitants for his own rival model village. The series ends with The Borrowers Avenged (1982), in which, after further adventures, the Borrowers have their revenge on the Platters and finally settle down in their perfect home.

As adapted for the small screen by Richard Carpenter, the first series followed the adventures of the Borrowers after they are first detected and, narrowly escaping the destruction of their home as well as death by rat poison and other threats, are forced to leave their home. The second series, shot on location at Chawton House in Hampshire and at Pinewood Studios, saw them end up at the model village. As in the original books, the underlying theme was the trust that develops between the various characters as they face the challenge of the unfamiliar dangers of the outside world together. The relationships between Arrietty and her parents and between Arrietty and the human boy lie at the heart of the story, which is essentially a fable about the process of growing up and facing the challenges of an alien adult world.

Transforming Mary Norton’s books into a live-action television serial presented obvious technical difficulties, particularly as the makers did not have access to the kind of computer technology that would have offered them more alternatives a few years later. The necessary miniaturization, achieved partly through superimposition of “reduced” live actors against full-sized backgrounds and through the judicial use of oversized props such as needles and match-boxes, was not perhaps always as convincing as it might have been with computer-enhanced technology, but what the series lacked in special effects (a problem exacerbated by the limited budget available) it made up for in the quality of the acting and the careful preservation of the charm and humor of Norton’s writing. Norton’s characters were colorful and complex, and the casting of the respected actors Ian Holm (as the pessimistic patriarch Pod) and his real-life wife Penelope Wilton (as the shrewish Homily) was crucial to the success of the series. The acting by the rest of the cast, which included Rebecca Callard (as Arrietty) and Sian Phillips (as Mrs. Driver), was equally assured. Some expressed doubts about the role of Richard Lewis, however, who acted as a sort of host, popping up somewhat incongruously at various points to comment upon the action.

The series was widely screened internationally and remains one of the most acclaimed of children’s fantasy dramas for children, maintaining the BBC’s reputation for quality period drama based on established literary classics. It was particularly admired for its visual qualities, being shot largely in a warm, misty glow which created an evocative, nostalgic atmosphere. The quality of the camerawork was formally recognized when the first series won BAFTA and Agfa awards for best television photography. The second series was again nominated for the same BAFTA award.

An earlier U.S. version of Mary Norton’s books, starring Eddie Albert, Tammy Grimes, Judith Anderson, Beatrice Straight, and Barnard Hughes and also titled The Borrowers, was reasonably successful when screened by Twentieth Century Fox in 1973. The story was given the Hollywood movie treatment, with the release of The Borrowers in 1997. Starring John Goodman, Jim Broadbent, Mark Williams, Hugh Laurie, Celia Imrie, and others and publicized under the slogan “Small is awesome,” this latest transatlantic incarnation of Norton’s adventures took full advantage of the special effects made possible by a budget of $30 million and was received well enough by family audiences.