Another Roaring Twenties bestseller: Michael Arlen’s The Green Hat (1924)

Sylvia writes: I found The Green Hat difficult to get into.  The first 30 to 40 pages seemed very slow but the pace then quckened until it reached a quite gripping denouement. It pays re-reading as there are several clues which it is easy to miss the first time round. The character of Iris Storm … Continue reading →

‘The original Bright Young Thing’: Beverley Nichols’ Crazy Pavements (1927)

I hadn’t heard of Beverley Nichols (1898-1983) before finding this novel in a box of donations. As soon as I started to do my research it became clear that he is yet another writer who was extremely well-known in his day, and almost entirely forgotten now.  Nichols had an amazingly prolific and wide-ranging writing career. … Continue reading →

Joanna Godden by Sheila Kaye Smith (1921)

I very much enjoyed this novel: it has a direct and precise style, striking characters and situations, an unusual and thoroughly imagined setting in the Romney Marshes in the late 19th century and a narrative which makes you want to read on. The narrator clearly knows many things which Joanna Godden does not, both about … Continue reading →

A claustrophobic rural hell: Mary Webb’s ‘The House in Dormer Forest’

Review by John S: The initial chapters of Mary Webb’s ‘The House in Dormer Forest’ are mildly entertaining. The novel is set in melancholy surroundings in rural Shropshire. Most of the leading characters are members of an extended family (and their servants), cooped up in a spooky old house. The grandmother and the loopy, ingratiating … Continue reading →