Toodle-pip

Reading 1900-1950 is off for its Easter Holidays. Hopefully my Easter reading – Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga – will help me recover from the disturbing excesses of Ethel M. Dell! Back on the 8th April.

Violent sex and sexualised violence in ‘The Bars of Iron’ by Ethel M. Dell (1916)

This novel is unlike anything I have read before. It is a romance – but so violent! And this violence is so relentlessly sexualised! It seems that in a period when sex could not be overtly described, violence became a substitute. The story begins with a bar brawl in Australia (rather unexpected, that). An unnamed … Continue reading →

Mothers and Children by Frank Danby (1918)

Continuing our reading of novels by the Frankau family, this is the first review of a novel by Frank Danby, the pseudonym of Julia Frankau (1859-1916). Julia can be considered the beginning of this literary family: she was a successful novelist, who also wrote scholarly books about eighteenth-century engraving, and had a circle of artistic friends … Continue reading →

The Lovely Ship by Storm Jameson (1927)

This novel is part of a trilogy about Yorkshire shipbuilders: The Lovely Ship (1927), The Voyage Home (1930) and A Richer Dust (1931). It was reprinted in the 1970s, and is now available as an e-book. Review by Helen N: Storm Jameson was a prolific writer and this is an early novel which has some … Continue reading →

Angel by Elizabeth Taylor (1957)

A little outside our collection years, this one, but such a good novel. I’m sure many of you will have read it, but for those who haven’t I hope this review from a member of our reading group will encourage you to try it. The novel is partly based on the Victorian writer Marie Corelli … Continue reading →

The Bridge by Pamela Frankau (1957)

Review by Kath R: I chose this novel from the pile because it had a photograph of Pamela Frankau on the back looking very intently at the camera smoking a cigarette and looking very much the professional writer. I immediately regretted my choice when I found out from the flyleaf that  it would be about religion … Continue reading →

The Dangerous Years by Gilbert Frankau (1937)

Review by Daniel Grieve: Written by Gilbert Frankau in his later years, The Dangerous Years is a novel split into three sections, Pre-War, Post-War and Present Day, beginning two years before WWI (1912) and ending two years before WWII (1937). With a title such as The Dangerous Years I was expecting good deal of action … Continue reading →

One of Us: A Novel in Verse by Gilbert Frankau (1912)

Review by George Simmers. See his Great War Fiction blog here. One of Us is a 1912 novel in verse, written by the young Gilbert Frankau. A direct imitation of Byron’s Don Juan, it tells the story of Jack, a wealthy young Englishman, as he travels around some of the world’s most luxurious locations, meeting … Continue reading →

Some New Planet by Pamela Frankau (1937)

Review by John S: This is the story of Hugh Shell, on his own admission a rather boring young chap, and his relationships with three people: his worldly and successful brother Bertrand who works for the Foreign Office, a writer called Mark Orburn (who is in fact a woman) with whom he conducts a lengthy … Continue reading →

The Foolish Apprentices by Pamela Frankau (1933)

Review by Sylvia D: Pamela Frankau, the younger daughter of Dorothea and Gilbert Frankau, published over thirty novels and books of short stories.  Her most successful novel, The Willow Cabin, was published in 1949 and her A Wreath for the Enemy (1954) is still in print on both sides of the Atlantic. The Foolish Apprentices … Continue reading →