Apart
from my recent post showing some of the Mabel Esther Allan dustjackets kindly
shared with me by F.G., I haven't posted a lot about "girls'" fiction
lately. It's funny how my reading of certain types of books ebbs and flows a
bit during the course of the year. I've sometimes wondered if it's related to
weather or hours of daylight or something strange like that, but it probably
just my weirdly varying moods.
For whatever reason, over the past month or so I've spent some wonderful weekends and/or happy
bedtime reading delving into some particularly good titles originally marketed
for teenage girls. Maybe my moon's in Aquarius or some such thing…
All dustjacket images courtesy of F.G. (of course!) |
The
first title to talk about is one more title that can now be crossed off of my
recent Hopeless Wish List, thanks to Constance of the wonderful Staircase Wit blog. After I noted
on my list that a copy of GWENDOLINE
COURTNEY's A Coronet for Cathie (1950)—even
the Girls Gone By reprint from a few years back—would cost a bit more than the
average flat in London, Constance jumped in and saved the day, and it wasn't
long before my eagerness overcame all the other titles on my TBR list and I
dived in. (I should also note that Constance reviewed the book herself soon
after, and her review here
likely sums things up better than I could ever do).
For
those unfamiliar with the story (i.e. if you don't have an original copy
treasured from your childhood, and missed the Girls Gone By reprint, and don't want to sell your cozy Bloomsbury flat
to buy a copy now), it's the charming if implausible story of sickly 15-year-old
Catherine Sidney, an orphan raised with limited means by a loving aunt, who
discovers that, following a striking series of tragedies in a hitherto unknown
branch of her family tree, she is now the unfathomably wealthy Duchess of
Montfort. We should all have such problems.
Cathie ventures to Devon with her Aunt
Bet, where she briefly meets the dying elderly Duke, as well as her gruff but
kindly new guardian, Colonel Rushton, and the colonel's three lively and
likeable children. (One might expect that some of these other members of the
family might be a bit saddened by the truly alarming body count among the
Duke's heirs of late, but little mention is made of all the corpses beyond
their beneficial impact on Cathie's social status.)
A
bit of sarcasm aside, though, and with all its implausibilities, Coronet is a lovely fun tale. It started
out just a bit bumpy for me as it is for all intents and purposes a Ruritanian
tale despite being set in England, and Ruritania has never been my favorite
country to visit. Then, too, as Constance also points out in her review,
Cathie's completely ludicrous fragility for much of the story (being carried up
and down stairs by her own personal footman—I mean, I wouldn't mind having a
footman, but if I get to the point of making him carry me around I hope someone
stages an intervention) makes her not a terribly dynamic heroine. Plus, she at
times is so idealized, so much adored by all who meet her, that a couple of
times I found myself perversely wanting to press her nose into her crumpets
just a bit.
Later in the story, however, when Cathie is no longer decrepit and is able to head off
to day school with her considerably more dynamic cousins—and even take up
horseback riding!—things do liven up, and the whole premise of her as a kind,
unselfish, down-to-earth squire for her vast estate begins to pay off. (Though,
as much as I comprehend that any large landowner with lots of tenants has some
real social responsibilities to shoulder, the way Cathie's estate is described
feels a bit too feudal for the 1950s!)
None of those details matter much in the end, however, as realism is hardly the
point of the story. A Coronet for Cathie
is not my absolute favorite of Courtney's work—Sally’s Family will always retain that title, I think, and Girls of Friar’s Rise and Stepmother are also faves, all with
their more domestic concerns. But Coronet
is still great fun, with memorable characters and a nice message about
"people who are worth knowing" and those who aren't. Thank you again to Constance for making it possible for me to read it. I highly
recommend it—particularly if you were thinking of selling that flat anyway…
From
there, I confess I was instantly and irrevocably seduced by the cover art of JANE SHAW's Anything Can Happen (1964), which happily came into my collection
courtesy of the wonderful F.G. I was just at the point where one look at the
girls with adorable Sixties hair browsing the bookstalls by the Seine with Notre Dame in all its unsinged glory behind them was all it took. I
immediately started reading, and it proved to be every bit as charming and
compulsively readable as it looked.
I
read a couple of Jane Shaw books years ago and enjoyed them but never became obsessed. Well, I'm afraid obsession is in the cards now, so it's just as well
that Girls Gone By announced, while I was reading this book, that they're
beginning to reprint several of Shaw's books.
The
premise is a classic wish fulfillment fantasy—Alison and her cousin Elizabeth
(nicknamed Dizzy due to her reputation for nonlinear thinking, not to mention
seeing criminal activity everywhere she looks) are sent to visit their Aunt Sophie in Paris. Poor things. And Aunt Sophie, a crime writer who
tends to get obsessed with her work, is not exactly a strict or attentive
guardian, so they practically have the run of the city. They quickly make
friends with handsome young Pierre, his brother Alain, and their two
adventurous little sisters RĂ©gine and Danielle.
Everywhere
they turn in Paris, they find mysterious happenings, which Alison sometimes puts down to
Dizzy's flair for intrigue but which finally become all too real. They
encounter suspicious behavior in a jewellery shop, get followed by "the
Man in the Grey Suit," and come to believe that Alison's mother's old
governess Madame Bertholet, whom they solemnly promised to visit, is the victim
of some diabolical intrigue at the hands of her housekeeper. In the course of
their adventures, they find plenty of time to visit Montmartre, stop in to Deux
Magots, climb the Eiffel Tower, and stroll through the Louvre.
It's
all silly and implausible, but I found it absolutely addictive and delightful. I
didn't want it to end. As I was reading, I recalled that Sue Sims and Hilary
Clare, in their Encyclopaedia of Girls'
School Stories, suggested that Shaw could most closely be compared with P.
G. Wodehouse, and although that sounds like an odd link, the kinship is clearly
on display in Anything Could Happen,
which sparkles with wit and charm throughout. I'm assuming there are other Shaw
fans among readers of this blog?
And
finally, just two weekends ago, I was needing something light and cheerful to
blot out the general sluggishness resulting from antibiotics for a sinus
infection (yuck), and picked up SUSAN
WYCHWOOD's French Leave (1936).
I've had this school story for ages, since I bought it based on Sims and
Clare's description of it, and it's turned out to be one of the most enjoyable,
down-to-earth school stories I've read.
It
centers around Avalon Grey, who is sent to boarding school in France because
her widowed father, a retired general, can't bear her resemblance to her dead
mother and to her older brother, who ran away from home years before when he
was just about Avalon's age. For the most part, the plot is realistic, with
lots of humorous but entirely plausible scenes between girls and mistresses,
including mild culture clashes between French and English ways of doing things
(Avalon is the only "Eengleesh mees" at the school, though a new
English mistress does arrive partway through the school year). The French provincial
town where the school is located is pleasantly described, and contains
excitement only in the form of a local regiment of Spahi soldiers (recruits
from Algeria serving their required time in the French army—no postcolonial concerns here!). The staff and
fellow boarders are mostly kind and eager to please their English classmate,
though there is a requisite troublemaker, Denise, who resents the attention
Avalon receives and seeks to bring her down a notch or two.
There
are a few gentle adventures of the traditional school story sort, but even
there the book manages to stay fairly plausible—there's no climbing out the
chimney of a burning room or singlehandedly taking down a ring of spies in
Wychwood's tale. Instead, there's a very modest buried treasure left over from
World War I (with some interesting discussion of the impacts of war), the discovery and rescue of an injured Spahi colonel in a forest,
a near-miss with a wild boar during a walk through the forest, and a Spahi
lieutenant who takes a mysterious interest in Avalon. Somehow, it's all very sweet-natured
but without being cloying or sentimental, spirited and entertaining without
being frenetic, and manages to give one a feel for the rhythms of day-to-day
school life. Sims and Clare noted that "[t]he details ring completely
true, and one cannot doubt that the author is drawing on her own experiences or
those of someone close to her."
Sadly,
the identity of Wychwood herself remains shrouded in mystery. Even the
brilliant John Herrington was unable to trace her. Sadder still, this was
apparently the only book she published. I for one would have loved it if she'd
written 20 or 30 more.
To
give you a taste, since this book is also a bit of a challenge to track down at reasonable prices,
some of my favorite passages in the book relate to the determined belief in the
minds of the French that England is perpetually shrouded in fog. Early in the
book Avalon discusses it with her classmates:
"Is it true," asked Louise, "that in England
there is always a fog, especially in London?"
"Oh, no," laughed Avalon, "we have them
sometimes, of course, in the winter, and now and then there are some very dense
ones in London, but not always!"
"One hears it said," muttered Denise darkly.
"Yes," said Avalon, "I have heard it said too,
but no one in her senses could believe any country to be permanently wrapped in
fog."
"Is your King married yet?" asked Jeanne hastily, to
change the subject.
"I saw him once in Paris. He is handsome, your King,"
said Marie-Therese.
"Yes, isn't he splendid?" glowed Avalon. "I've seen
him once, in London."
"Which she couldn't have done in a fog," put in Antoinette
soberly.
And
that passage links up nicely, later in the book, with a scene in which Avalon
and the new English mistress toy with the assumptions of a Frenchwoman on the
train to Paris:
"You have fogs in England?" she added hopefully.
"Occasionally," agreed Miss Field. "I remember one
five years ago—or was it six? Do you know, Avalon? Or perhaps you would have
been too small at the time to appreciate it."
"But I have seen a fog," claimed Avalon.
"Indeed?" said Miss Field, turning to her with well-acted
eagerness. "When? Where? You have never mentioned it to me before."
"It was about a year ago," said Avalon. "It was
quite thick—one could only just see the top of the church steeple at the end of
the street. What a pity you missed it!"
LOVE the covers (as always) I am almost ashamed to say, when I saw the title "FrEnch Leave," I thought - WHAT! Fora girls' novel? My goodness! - so, I guess it can mean more than one thing, eh? Shame on me! ANyway, thanks, Scott - makes me wish I could have a 60's hairdo!
ReplyDeleteTom
I don't know the meaning you're referring to, Tom, but perhaps that's just as well!?
Delete"French leave" is to go somewhere without permission. It's like being AWOL.
DeleteI don't much like A Coronet for Cathie and sold my copy (wish I'd waited!). Like you, my favourite Courtney is Sally's Family.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big Jane Shaw fan and have nearly all her books. If you've only just started, you have the joy of all the Susan and the Penny books to come, plus the ones with 'holiday' in the title. As for comparisons with other authors, I think Jane Shaw was more like Anthony Buckeridge. Being a male author, I suppose he's excluded from your lists but Jennings still makes me laugh as much now as when I was seven.
I'll have to sample Anthony Buckeridge. How could I never have heard of him? Interestingly, though, on his Wikipedia page one of the authors he's compared to is Wodehouse!
DeleteI have several more Jane Shaw books from F.G., but being obsessive I've already acquired a couple more on my own, including the first Susan book, so I'm happy to have your recommendation!
Oh, these all sound marvellous! I think England was still pretty feudal in the 50s if you look at tied cottages on estates and the like, to be honest.
ReplyDeleteYou're probably right, Liz. There was just an old-fashioned feel to the treatment of Cathie's tenants that seemed to hark back to "simpler" times (i.e. before things got so complicated with the little people getting uppity and demanding more rights). It adds a bit to the Ruritanian feel of the Courtney's book.
Delete