Book Review by George S.: I’ve read reviews on the internet complaining that The Toll-Gate is not a proper ‘Regency Romance’ in the usual Georgette Heyer manner. It isn’t. It’s more of a comedy-thriller romp set in the past – and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The hero is Jack Staple, a huge man, a Captain … Continue reading
Posted by George Simmers …
The Woman’s Journal, December 1927
Magazine Review by Jane V: Cover portrait – The Countess of Cromer, by Philip A. de Laszlo MVO Serials Life of Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, Duchess of York by Lady Cynthia Asquith This is a disorganised instalment of a much longer biography, illustrated by photos. It is rather oily in style.
An Eye for a Tooth (1943) – Dornford Yates
Book review by George S: This is one of Dornford Yates’s Chandos series of thrillers. The cover of the first edition makes that very clear. It pictures a mediaeval-looking street (which does not correspond to any location in the novel) hung with signs advertising the previous thrillers in the series. It’s an odd cover – … Continue reading
The Slaves of Solitude (1947) by Patrick Hamilton
Book Review by George S: This is a book about low-level nastiness during the Second World War. It is set in Thames Lockton, a town very like Henley-on Thames, where Patrick Hamilton spent the Second World War. In the Rosamund Tea Rooms – no longer tea rooms, but a boarding-house catering for people who have … Continue reading
To Beg I am Ashamed (1938) by Sheila Cousins
This book is subtitled The Autobiography of a London Prostitute, and was originally intended to be published by Routledge in 1938. The papers heard about it, and created a scandal. ‘A disgraceful Book: It Must Be Stopped’ was the Daily Mail headline. The police went round to the publishers and were persuasive enough to make … Continue reading
Sleeveless Errand (1929) by Norah C James
Book review by Sylvia D: For the Reading Groups Second World War session, I read Enduring Adventure by Norah C James (1896-1979), a novel about the impact of the Blitz on the owners and regulars at a central London pub. When I was researching James, I was intrigued to discover that her first novel had … Continue reading
Summer Will Show (1936) by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Book Review by George S: Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes (1926) is about a woman leaving an ordinary environment and developing in extraordinary ways (she becomes a witch). Summer Will Show also describes the extraordinary progress and liberation of a previously conventional woman, but this time the process of liberation is not magical but emotional … Continue reading
Lolly Willowes (1926) by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Book Review by Sylvia D: Lolly Willowes or The Loving Huntsman, by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978) was her first successful novel, published in 1926 when she was still working as an editor of the ten volume Tudor Church Music. It is set around the turn of the twentieth century and is the story of a … Continue reading
The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932) by Sax Rohmer
Book Review by George S: In 1936, fifteen-year old Mary Wilkinson began to keep a record of her reading, and continued it for several years. This month members of the Reading Group have been reading some of the books a young woman read in the late thirties and early forties. The Mask of Fu Manchu … Continue reading
Across the Black Waters (1939) by Mulk Raj Anand
Book Review by George S: Across the Black Waters is the second volume in a trilogy by Mulk Raj Anand. The other volumes are: The Village, which describes the early life of Lalu, and ends with him joining the Indian Army; and The Sword and the Sickle, which follows his life in the years after … Continue reading
