The Brandons (1939), by Angela Thirkell (Again)

By Val Hewson The Brandons is, I think, the first Angela Thirkell novel I read, and it remains a favourite. Hilary Temple of the Angela Thirkell Society reviewed The Brandons for Reading 1900-1950 here, illustrating perfectly why it is one of Thirkell’s most popular novels. When I found a second-hand copy recently, it seemed to … Continue reading →

Northbridge Rectory (1941) by Angela Thirkell

Book review by Hilary Temple At this stage in Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire saga we are in the second year of WWII. To emphasise this, the ten-bedroomed Rectory of the title is being lived in not only by the recently-arrived Rector and his wife, Gregory and Verena Villars, but by half a dozen of the Barsetshire … Continue reading →

Summer Half (1937) by Angela Thirkell

Book Review by Hilary Temple ‘It seems to me highly improbable that any such school, masters, or boys could ever have existed.’ In writing this as a preliminary to Summer Half Thirkell had her tongue firmly in her cheek (a place it was quite used to occupying). Mother of three very bright sons, she had … Continue reading →

Miss Bunting (1945) by Angela Thirkell

(published by Hamish Hamilton) Book review by Hilary Temple. Jane Austen notoriously ‘didn’t mention the war’ in her novels according to some critics – though anyone reading Mansfield Park or Persuasion with any attention finds the international perspective is a given. Thirkell, writing similarly about ‘3 or 4 families in a country village’, uses WWII … Continue reading →

Cheerfulness Breaks In (1940) by Angela Thirkell

Book review by Hilary Temple. (Published by Hamish Hamilton) Cheerfulness Breaks In might seem an odd title for a novel dealing with the outbreak of WWII. Its origin can be found in any dictionary of quotations: in Boswell’s Life of Johnson Oliver Edwards says ‘I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; … Continue reading →

An unwelcome end to the war? ‘Peace Breaks Out’ by Angela Thirkell (1946)

Review by Clare G: This book sits in the midst of a series of interlinked stories set in the fictional Barsetshire – a locale self-consciously borrowed by Thirkell from Anthony Trollope. The complex family and social relationships between the characters can prove challenging to follow and most of the cast are presented as mildly amusing … Continue reading →