Review by Margaret B: The story takes place over a period of a week at the end of the summer. Edward Stack, his wife Margaret and their nineteen year old daughter, Hilary, return from two months’ holiday. Edward’s cousin Maurice Roper has been looking after Edward’s parish while they are away. Just after they had … Continue reading
Posted in July 2014 …
Confessions and Impressions by Ethel Mannin (1930)
This book has a fair amount in common with Beverley Nichols’ autobiography-but-really-about-other -people Twenty-Five. Just shows the appetite for celebrity gossip has existed for many years! Nichols was himself a literary celebrity and appears in Mannin’s book. She rated his ‘genius’ over Noel Coward! (For an academic article in which I analyse Nichols at great … Continue reading
The Killer and the Slain by Hugh Walpole (1942)
Review by Thecla: This is a dark, uncanny novel, one of Walpole’s macabre works. It is subtitled “A Strange Story” and the dedication to Henry James reads “This macabre is dedicated in loving memory and humble admiration to the great author of The Turn of the Screw.” This is Walpole’s version of the doppelgänger story. … Continue reading
Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther by Elizabeth von Arnim (1907)
WordPress tell me that today is this blog’s second birthday. So Happy Birthday Reading 1900-1950! Thank you to everyone who has written reviews and everyone who has read and commented on them! It is a real pleasure to run this blog. There’s 180 posts, most of them book reviews. See the page for a full … Continue reading
Farthing Hall by Hugh Walpole and J. B. Priestley (1929)
This novel is a collaboration between Walpole and Priestley. Walpole, the older novelist, writes as the young artist, while Priestley takes the character of the middle-aged academic. There’s a nice article about their ‘friendship of opposites’ here. Review by Jane Varley: The plot unfolds in an exchange of letters between two friends – a forty … Continue reading
‘Trollope meets King Lear’: The Cathedral by Hugh Walpole (1922)
Review by Margaret B: The initially humorous tone of Hugh Walpole’s The Cathedral for a while masks what is eventually a very tragic story with parallels to King Lear. We are introduced to the handsome, rather pompous, arrogant but successful Archdeacon of Polchester, Adam Brandon, his adored son and rather neglected wife and daughter, his … Continue reading
Hugh Walpole (1884-1941)
Next, reviews of Hugh Walpole. Who reads Walpole now? Very few people, I suspect. There is an excellent 2013 article on the BBC which wonders if a new theatre adaptation of his most famous novel, Rogue Herries, will bring new readers and a revived reputation. I don’t think it has happened! Walpole was an important literary figure … Continue reading
Reading 1900-1950 