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 →

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 →

In the Mountains by Elizabeth von Arnim (1920)

The first edition of this novel was published anonymously, though it must have been obvious to readers familiar with Elizabeth’s style that she was the author. The contemporary Times Literary Supplement reviewer wrote that the novel, ‘by an anonymous but surely by a very practised hand, holds a peculiar quality of surprise. […] Behind the exceedingly careful, … Continue reading →

The Pastor’s Wife by Elizabeth von Arnim (1914)

Review by Sylvia D: The Pastor’s Wife is a joy to read. It is witty, thought-provoking, full of wonderful descriptive passages and a fine study of human isolation. The main character, Ingeborg Bullivant, moves from the tyranny of an unbending, pompous Bishop of a father to being helpmeet to a stolid German pastor for whom … Continue reading →

Karen by Mrs Alfred Sidgwick (1918)

Review by Kath R: Karen, an young English girl, daughter of a widower, goes to Germany for the wedding of a school-friend.  She falls out with the temperamental family and returns to England.  On her return she decides to marry a German army officer, a count she has met on the train, who is also … Continue reading →

Mrs Alfred Sidgwick (c.1850-1934) and Cousin Ivo (1899)

Cecily Sidgwick published 41 novels and collections of short stories over her long career from 1889 until her death in 1934. She was born in London to a German Jewish family, and frequently wrote about Germany and German characters. She  married a philosopher, Alfred Sidgwick, and converted to Christianity. I would be fascinated to learn more … Continue reading →

Tante by Anne Douglas Sedgwick (1911)

Reading this book made me reflect, again, on how reading a novel is a very different experience when you have been exposed to marketing, and when you haven’t. If I had read this book with a dust jacket the blurb would most likely have told me that this was a story of dangerous woman – … Continue reading →

Father by “the author of Elizabeth and her German Garden” (1931)

Review by Thecla W: Jennifer Dodge (Jen), 33, is the spinster daughter of a writer. She promised her dying mother that she would never leave father and for 12 years she has managed his household and acted as his secretary. One day, out of the blue, father comes home with a young second wife. Jen … Continue reading →

The Benefactress by the author of “Elizabeth and her German Garden” (1901)

This month one of our reading groups is reading Elizabeth von Arnim novels. I might as well lay my cards on the table and say that she is one of my favourite novelists! I was delighted when we received a donation of many first and early editions of her novels, giving me an excuse for … Continue reading →

Beverley Nichols’ first autobiography: Twenty-Five (1926)

I’ve posted before about Beverley Nichols (1898- 1983), a prolific writer of novels, journalism, political tracts, plays, children’s fiction, books about houses, gardens and cats – you name it, he wrote it. My interest was started by finding a copy of his early novel Crazy Pavements (1927), a surprising, dark and funny book. I wanted … Continue reading →