Fiction and History

I seem to see as many readers of history as of fiction glancing and commenting on this blog - I like it, even if I can't seem to get comments emailed to me. I'd never realised just now many Noel Streatfeild readers were blogging regularly. The very kind Vintage Reader mentioned the pushy stage mother (Cora Wintle) in Wintle's Wonders - Noel Streatfeild did get revenge on all silly mothers there.

To those who've emailed me to ask, no, my second title is in development and that's really all I can say.

To escape from the worry of project-management, I've been reading through Juliet Gardiner's books recently and am seriously considering going to her talks this winter. She's doing a series of Blitz-related lectures at the London Transport Museum and I am counting pennies.

It's been a while since I updated the blog. Not that I've been doing anything out of the ordinary, just enjoying the sunshine and the early chill of autumn. I like travelling at the tail-end of summer, just as the 'back to school' signs are removed to make way for Halloween or Christmas, depending on how organised or desperate your shop is. I'd travelled at the last minute recently and ran out of books just as I arrived at the airport. That was misjudgement. I usually have a second paperback in my bag just in case I finish the first one, but the scramble to travel meant that I just didn't have the wit to pack properly. The selection at the airport was pitiful - I was just grateful that there was a copy of Daisy Goodwin's My Last Duchess on display. I'd been meaning to buy the hardback and had a very good read on my flight. Even if the two copies available were scuffed and creased, it was much the best of a dire selection. Anyway, it turned out to be a very good read for costumed delights and polite romance. My Last Duchess crosses between Eva Ibbotson, Edith Wharton and Frances Hodgson Burnett in a fascinating tale of marriage and country house life.

I don't know how I came across the 2nd Edition Book Sellers based at Raleigh-Durham airport. I've never actually flown there, but the idea of a secondhand and antiquarian bookshop in an airport terminal really appeals to me. We're all doomed to spend rather too much time 'waiting' in the departure lounge before joining another queue at the airport these days, so a browsing opportunity of this kind sounds temptingly blissful. Then again, I hunt down secondhand bookshops wherever I travel, just to see what may be on the shelves. Mostly, I'm disappointed and find the glossy (gilded elevates these titles undeservedly) holiday writing, though sometimes I find delights like Rumer Godden and Elizabeth von Arnim.

I see that someone in America is selling my book for rather more than I do. I wish them luck, though I feel as much irritated as amused by it. I'm almost certain I haven't actually sold them any copies, though they may have bought stock elsewhere.

Crime and cocktails

I'll move from vintage books to contemporary today, mostly because I'm still working my way through books by illustrators I like and authors I'm not familiar with. Some books I've found using this odd search criteria work rather well. More of that later. A lucky find a week or four ago in a charity shop was a trio of Phryne Fishers. Kerry Greenwood is an Australian crime novelist I'd never tried, but am now keen to read more of. Sadly, she doesn't seem to be stocked by English bookshops, but there are plenty of copies on Amazon.

Phyrne Fisher is an exuberantly 'bright young thing' living in Australia and earning her living as a lady detective. It seems that Phryne grew up in Australia in less than genteel poverty, then her father inherited a title (as you do in all the best girls own novels) when the three men between him and the title died. Flung into wealth and status, Phyrne and her family returned to England, though Phyrne herself has put as much distance as possible between herself and her parents and returned to live in Australia. Which book this past history might be in, I'm not exactly sure. We see hints of her past only in the novels I've managed to read. We may not even see this at all. Mostly, Phryne appears in 1928 as an elegant survivor of World War One with a lover, a perfectly-run household, a fast car and two adopted daughters.

Her publishers have created a lovely website for Phyrne and are very generous with downloadable extracts to preview all the books. It doesn't really matter if you read this series out of order, the novels are all appealing in their own right, so just see what appeals to you - do you prefer your sleuthing to be at sea, at the circus, on the train or at the fair?

Jam and books

Two firsts for me this week. The first was making jam (as opposed to lemon curd, which I'm very good at) and the second was making scones - I usually buy them. Reading vintage novels for girls does tend to make you think of food more as someone is always preparing a picnic or a feast with iced cakes and fizz. I wanted to try making jam, but a tangy (not overly sweet) jam. Strawberry and gooseberry sounded ideal and does indeed taste delicious. Next time, though, I may cut the fruit a little smaller, just to make eating (and balancing the jam on the toast) easier.

I can even find you a novel about jam-making. Madge Smith, who wrote under many similar names, wrote a gentle little tale in the Gwendoline Courtney vein of preserving an English heritage and building one's own family in the 1940s and 1950s. Jam Today is a comforting sort of summery book where two girls leave school to set up a jam factory in their decaying country home. Our practical tomboy heroine rejects the offer of a place at a smart finishing school to remain in Devon and develop a jam-making business in the hope that she can keep the family home (far too dilapidated to be stately) and land (a useful 20 acres). Assuming she can earn an income from the estate, she can revitalise her home and family. Her mother, a faded beauty and keen on smart society, is disappointed and aghast that her daughter should wish to run her own life along modern lines. It's the usual 'let's run the show right here' type with the girl (at least) finishing her domestic science course at school before striking out in the brave post-war world to combine tradition and entrepreneurship. Without the jam-making and business-building, we see the standard reliance on established values of friendship, honesty, trust in headmistresses, godparents and doctors and a love of folk-dancing.

How to search for new books

Sunday afternoon: time to write up and conclude.

I am experimenting at the moment as I seem to have run out of of girl's own books by favourite authors. They all stop writing eventually. Just temporarily, I don't want to reread, but expand my collection (horizons?) a little. So, I'd noticed that girl's own books tend to be published by the same publishers and illustrated by the same artists. A little lateral thinking (and quite a bit of 'keyword' searching on ABE) yields treasures to borrow from the reading room or purchase from a friendly book dealer.

My recommendation thus far is to try typing Ruth Gervis or the favoured illustrator of your choice in the ABE keywords search field and see what you can see. I then removed 'Enid Blyton' and got on very well. You can do much the same in the British Library's catalogue, though I like the chance to see stock pictures on ABE.

We Never Thought of That! was purchased solely for the promise of illustrations of 1950s France by Ruth Gervis. That's all I can really recommend the book for, though I'm keeping it because it does look beautiful on the shelf. I don't know anything about P.M. Lovell (a one book type according to the BL Catalogue, though it's possible that she is also the Phyllis Lovell who wrote domestic science manuals), but it seems to me that the story could and should have had a better treatment. Imagine, you send your children to France for the summer in the hope that youngest daughter will learn enough French to impress in her boarding school entrance examination that autumn. As you've begun on the cross-Channel ferry without parents, you then introduce two more worldly teenagers to widen the horizons of your sheltered characters. In no time at all, your children have decided to extend their stay abroad, rent a house and reopen a conveniently abandoned cafe achieving some local success by serving omlettes, scones, English tea and girls that sing folk songs. It's rather a pity that Gwendoline Courtney (see GGBP) or Noel Streatfeild didn't actually write this; Lovell's cast just don't come to life in the same way that a Courtney family does in The Girls of Friars Rise or even a Streatfeild family does, say in Wintle's Wonders or The Painted Garden. That said, I didn't need to endure (or turn pages rapidly) when a small girl (a very Courtney type) is either saying/doing something shocking (in ankle socks, not stockings, sorry), downright irritating or leaving muddy prints all over the narrative. There's a superior (though show-off handsome) type of young man that Brent-Dyer is so fond of and plenty of nice domesticated girls being competent, but it just doesn't rise terribly high or high enough to complement Gervis's wonderful illustrations. It was an enjoyable muddle and a good light read of an innocent summer holiday where you don't learn much French.

Fabulosity - books and parties

I am waiting rather impatiently for my new (but old) copy of The Secret Garden as I'm keen to reread it after stumbling across a generous blog telling the story (with pictures and conversation) of a Secret Garden party. Willow Bird Baking provided a generous and amazing party for her sister (see photos here). I went to my bookshelves to look things up, then realised that I had 'pruned' certain titles when I was desperate for more shelf space. Then again, my childhood copy of The Secret Garden was a fairly dull paperback. Knowing that ABE would provide, I had a quick glance through the title listings, then started searching by illustrator. Hopefully, I'll soon have a hardback reprint (with DW) as I like books with age and character, illustrated by E.H. Shepard. Until it does arrive, I'm reading blogs on parties with a certain amount of awe at the creativity and beauty. Eat Drink Chic has the best ice cream party I've ever seen and a link to a wonderful place to find fonts for labels and invitations.

At least I can go and re-read The Painted Garden while waiting for the postman, not that he'll arrive until Monday now. Noel Streatfeild's tale of making a Hollywood film of The Secret Garden (with the hardback text) showing 1950s Los Angeles will satisfy my need for Frances Hodgson Burnett. Also, The Painted Garden does do food and parties terribly well, not quite Ratty's garbled listing of an endless hamper, but plenty that any child enduring rationing could envy. The American breakfasts full of fruit are especially mouthwatering. Then again, as it's already past noon on Sunday, it's really time for brunch.

P.S. "Fabulosity" is a real word, especially when you spell it correctly. I first found it in Rumer Godden's The Peacock Spring and find it very useful for superlative situations.