In 1993 her book The Rosemary Tree was plagiarised by Indrani Aikath-Gyaltsen; the "new" novel set in India was warmly reviewed in The New York Times and The Washington Post before its source was discovered.

The family moved to Ely, when he became principal of the Theological College there, and then to Christ Church, Oxford, when he was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at the University.

[6] After her mother died on 4 May 1951, she moved to Oxfordshire for the last 30 years of her life, in a cottage on Peppard Common outside Henley-on-Thames, where a blue plaque was unveiled in 2008.

[8] Goudge's first book, The Fairies' Baby and Other Stories (1919), failed to sell and several years passed before she wrote her first novel, Island Magic (1934), which was an immediate success.

Elizabeth had regularly visited Guernsey as a child and recalled in her autobiography The Joy of the Snow spending many summers there with her maternal grandparents and other relatives.

[9] The Little White Horse, published by University of London Press in 1946, won Goudge the annual Carnegie Medal of the Library Association, as the year's best children's book by a British subject.

[11] Retailing her point of view: As this world becomes increasingly ugly, callous and materialistic it needs to be reminded that the old fairy stories are rooted in truth, that imagination is of value, that happy endings do, in fact, occur, and that the blue spring mist that makes an ugly street look beautiful is just as real a thing as the street itself.Goudge's books are notably Christian in outlook, covering sacrifice, conversion, discipline, healing, and growth through suffering.

Her novels, whether realistic, fantasy or historical, weave in legend and myth and reflect a spirituality and love of England that generate its appeal, whether she wrote for adults or for children.

After Aikath-Gyaltsen recast the setting to an Indian village, changing the names and switching the religion to Hindu, but often keeping the story word-for-word the same, it received better notices.