Peter Opie
Peter Mason Opie (1918 - 1982) was an English specialist in children's literature, and the customs of schoolchildren. He was educated at Eton College.
He worked on a number of celebrated books with his wife Iona Opie (nee Archibald). They included the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1951), The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book (1955), The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (1959), Children's Games in Street and Playground (1969) and The Classic Fairy Tales (1974).
The Opies worked from their home in Alton, Hampshire. Peter's collection of items of old children's literature, amounting in the end to 20,000 pieces, is now in the Bodleian Library.
Reference
- Children and their books: a celebration of the work of Iona and Peter Opie (1989, OUP) edited by Gillian Avery and Julia Briggs