UPDATE: Intriguing women

I recently highlighted a few interesting new discoveries from the most recent update of my list when I spotlighted those I had come across on the backs of other books. But there were a few others that I came across in various other ways—several of them again suggestions from readers—that are also particularly intriguing and may have to end up on my TBR list.

I've mentioned here before that, despite being completely non-religious myself, I find myself rather fascinated by and even attracted to the lives of those who make religion the center of their lives in positive and productive ways. So I might just have to check out MONICA BALDWIN's memoir I Leap Over the Wall (1949), about her experiences having left a convent after 28 years. She later wrote a novel also presumably based on her experiences, The Called and the Chosen (1957). For those of you with access to the wonderful Hathi Trust, both books are available for free downloading (at least in the U.S.).

Elizabeth Bibesco

How I had missed ELIZABETH BIBESCO previously is a bit of a mystery. She's the daughter of another writer on my list, Margot Asquith, and appears to have been not only a colorful figure who should have landed on my radar, but also a critically acclaimed author in her day, her short stories garnering comparisons to no lesser figures than Katherine Mansfield and Henry James. Her two earliest story collections are also available on Hathi Trust or from Google Books (again, in the U.S., at least—since copyright laws vary, outside the U.S. you could be frustrated in your pursuit of them). I'm looking forward to sampling them.

Both KATE CHRISTIE and ELIZABETH ELIOT also seem to have garnered acclaim in their prime. Christie's works are the more elusive and apparently the more serious, though all I have been able to learn is that her first novel, Smith (1954), was set in Cumberland and received praise from Julian Symons, her later tale, Goodbye, Jimmy, Goodbye (1961), was about an alcoholic, and by 1968 she was publishing a horror novel called Child's Play.

Eliot, by contrast, was often praised for her humor and high spirits. Her debut, Alice (1950), garnered her comparisons to Nancy Mitford, and subsequent blurbs and reviews suggest that her humor matured and improved but certainly didn't decrease. In the U.S. at least, Alice is available to download for free from the Hathi Trust.

It's hard to tell for sure if LUCILLE IREMONGER was a more serious literary author or a writer of melodrama. Her debut, Creole (1950), is about the decline of a creole family in Jamaica, and the young Oxford graduate forced to marry into the family. Shades of Faulkner there? Or shades of bad Hollywood melodrama? Iremonger's second novel, The Cannibals, is set in Fiji and deals with a young girl who has lost her memory. At any rate, I also seem to have an ongoing fascination with the experiences of Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain during a visit to Versailles in 1901, and Iremonger wrote the definitive book on the subject with The Ghosts of Versailles (1957), which I may well have to track down. (Edith Olivier also discusses the events in her wonderful memoir, Without Knowing Mr. Walkley.)

Pretty much every time I do an update to my list, I end up spontaneously deciding that one book is an absolute must-read. There's something about a newly-discovered book that causes it to leap ahead of the other books on my ridiculously long TBR list. That happened this time with When the Weather's Changing (1945), the one and only adult novel by Jean Howard (later far better known—and included on my list—as JEAN MACGIBBON). It was described as a novel of the final period of World War II, with the events of one summer filtered through the eyes of a farmer's wife. Something about that description made it irresistible to me, so a copy of it is currently making its way to me from a bookseller in Ireland, no less.

MacGibbon's personal story seems intriguing as well. She reportedly had a nervous breakdown not long after publishing this novel, and she never returned to adult fiction, opting instead to become a successful children's author, among whose works is Pam Plays Doubles (1962), a school story listed in the Sims and Clare Encyclopaedia. Later in life, she also wrote a memoir, I Meant to Marry Him (1984), which includes discussion of her life with her husband during the war, at which time both were apparently members of the Communist party (see an excerpt from the memoir here). Interestingly, her husband admitted in the 1990s to passing classified British intelligence to the Russians! You'll doubtless be hearing more about MacGibbon here. Stay tuned.

Fanny Cradock's early alter-ego

FANNY CRADOCK and ELISABETH ANN LORING are perhaps more interesting as "personalities" than for their literary contributions (though the latter could be brilliant lost masterpieces, for all I know at this point). Cradock was a very famous, rather eccentric television chef in Britain for several decades, until IN 1976 she famously derided an amateur chef's efforts during a television cooking special and the backlash more or less ended her career. In her prime, however, she was quite entertaining, as you can see from this snippet of her demonstrating (with gruesome efficiency) the carving of a Christmas bird. Interestingly, before her career as a chef, she had already published an array of novels under the pseudonym Frances Dale—some of which sound like thrillers while others are perhaps more romantic melodrama. Late in her career, she also published the eight-part Castle Loring series of historical novels, which included World War II in its sequence of events.

Loring, by contrast, was known as a print journalist rather than a television personality. Under the name "Elisabeth Ann," she was the editor of the Sunday Dispatch and Modern Weekly "Woman's Page," the author of several books about knitting and other crafts, and also narrated the 1934 LP release "How to Slenderise." You can read about the last of these endeavors here. In the 1930s, Loring published three novels, and one wonders how they fit in with the other elements of her career.

Most you already know of my fascination with school novels written for adults (as well as, more and more, those written for girls). So I was happy to come across ELIZABETH LAKE, who is probably best known now for her 1952 novel The First Rebellion, which is set in a girls' convent school and deals with the repercussions of a young student who has decided that she is an atheist. It's hard to tell from what little I've read about it whether it is light-hearted or deadly serious, but it's intriguing enough idea for me to check out if I have the chance (right now, copies of it for sale look few, far between, and pricey, but I'll keep trying).

And finally, although she didn't write fiction, it's hard to understand how I'm just now getting around to adding the wonderful GWEN RAVERAT to my list. If I'm including authors who wrote important or particularly worthwhile memoirs, then surely Raverat's vivid and hilarious memoir of late Victorian childhood belongs. I've actually just recently read it, and am working on a short post about it.

Those are a few of the other authors from the most recent update that particularly jumped out at me. Hope some of them caught your eye too.

MONICA BALDWIN (?1896-1975) Catholic nun who left the convent and wrote about her experiences—first a memoir, I Leap Over the Wall: Contrasts and Impressions After Twenty-eight Years in a Convent (1949), then a novel, The Called and the Chosen (1957), and finally a travel book, Goose in the Jungle (1965).

ELIZABETH [CHARLOTTE LUCY] BIBESCO (1897-1945) (née Asquith, aka Princess Bibesco) Daughter of Margot Asquith; poet, playwright, and novelist; her fiction includes The Fir and the Palm (1924), There is No Return (1927), Portrait of Caroline (1931), and The Romantic (1940), and three story collections; The Nation compared her work to Mansfield and James.

KATE CHRISTIE (dates unknown) Novelist whose debut, Smith (1954), set in Cumberland, was praised by Julian Symons; other fiction includes Harold in London (1956), Morgan (1957), Goodbye, Jimmy, Goodbye (1961), about an alcoholic, The Waiting Game (1962), and Child's Play (1968), the last apparently a horror tale.

FANNY CRADOCK (1909-1994) (pseudonym of Phyllis Nan Sortain Pechey, aka Frances Dale) Theatrical television chef and cookbook author who also wrote numerous novels under her own name and as Frances Dale; titles include Scorpion's Suicide (1942), Women Must Wait (1944), O Daughter of Babylon (1947), and a popular series beginning with The Lormes of Castle Rising (1975).

ELIZABETH ELIOT (1911-1991) (full name Germaine Elizabeth Olive Eliot, married names James and Kinnaird) Novelist and biographer whose debut, Alice (1950), was compared to Nancy Mitford; other fiction includes Henry (1950), Mrs. Martell (1953), Starter's Orders (1955), and Cecil (1962); non-fiction includes Heiresses and Coronets (1959), about prominent European/American marriages, and They All Married Well (1960).

LUCILLE IREMONGER (1915-1989) (née Parks) Novelist, travel writer, and biographer born in Jamaica; fiction includes Creole (1950), The Cannibals (1952), and How Do I Love Thee (1976), about the Brownings; The Ghosts of Versailles (1957) is an examination of Miss Moberly and Miss Jourdain's adventures at Versailles.

ELIZABETH LAKE (c1915-1976) (pseudonym of Inez Pearn, married name Madge) Wife of Mass Observation founder Charles Madge and author of five novels, including Spanish Portrait (1945), Marguerite Reilly (1946), The Lovers Disturbed (1949), The First Rebellion (1952), an adult novel set in a girls' convent school, and Siamese Counterpart (1958).

ELISABETH ANN LORING (1904-1977) Editor, under the name Elizabeth Ann, of the Sunday Dispatch and Modern Weekly "Woman's Page," (see here for more on that side of her career), Loring also published at least three novels—Ladies' Paradise (1933), Night After Bond Street (1936), and Designs by Jo (1936).

JEAN MACGIBBON (1913-2002) (née Howard, aka Jean Howard) Intriguing author of one highly-acclaimed novel for adults, When the Weather's Changing (1945), about the events of a farmer's wife's summer; she then suffered a nervous breakdown and thereafter turned mainly to children's fiction, including the school story Pam Plays Doubles (1962).

GWEN[DOLEN MARY] RAVERAT (1885-1957) (née Darwin) Granddaughter of Charles Darwin, and noted artist and illustrator whose humorous memoir of her childhood, Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood (1952), has become a classic of the genre.