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.

Review of Descent into Hell (1937) by Charles Williams

Review by Mary G Thecla W pointed me to the comment on the dust jacket as she lent me her copy of Descent into Hell: ‘These novels have been constantly asked for by a small but enthusiastic public’. I have only met three members of this small but enthusiastic public but all value him very … Continue reading →

Frankau month at the special collection

This month at the special collection reading group we are all reading a novel by a member of the Frankau family. Thanks to a donation from the grandson of Gilbert Frankau, Timothy Smith, we now have novels in the collection by: Julia Frankau (writing under the pseudonym Frank Danby, 1859-1916) Her son, Gilbert Frankau (1884-1952) Gilbert’s … Continue reading →

Xenophobia, misogyny and sentimentality: Reprieve by Warwick Deeping (1945)

No reprieve from Warwick Deeping on this blog! Sylvia D has bravely read another Deeping from the 1940s so you don’t have to. The plot summary Arthur Valentine Brown is a rather grey, well-to-do city man in his late forties who lives in a mock Tudor “mansion” in affluent suburbia in a loveless marriage with … Continue reading →

The Dark House by Warwick Deeping (1941)

My friend and colleague Mary Grover is, I think I can safely say, the world expert on the novelist Warwick Deeping. She wrote a splendid book about him called The Ordeal of Warwick Deeping: Middlebrow Authorship and Cultural Embarrassment (2009) and her collection of all sixty-eight of Deeping’s novels formed the beginning of the special collection at … Continue reading →