VALENTINE DOBRÉE, Your Cuckoo Sings by Kind (1927)

This is another of my recent spate of interlibrary loan requests of deeply obscure novels that I've been meaning to read for ages—my "seize the day" not-quite-resolution for the year. It's completely coincidental (unless, as Freud suggested, there really are no accidents) that this one arrived just after I'd finished reading The Red Centaur by Marjorie Mack (aka Marjorie Dixon), but they were quite interesting to read in close proximity. Both novels are adult works focused very much on childhood and the perceptions of children, though at that point the resemblance ends…

Valentine Dobrée was loosely associated with the Bloomsbury Group, being as she was a friend of Dora Carrington's and, apparently, a lover of both Dora's husband Ralph Partridge (later married to diarist Frances Partridge) and Dora's lover Mark Gertler—though I can't find any details about how this affected their friendship—perhaps, in typical Bloomsbury style, they were perfectly cheerful about sharing their lovers? Like Dora, Valentine was mainly a visual artist, but she published two novels in the late 1920s, as well as a story collection in 1935. The second novel, The Emperor's Tigers (1929), seems to enter the realms of fantasy, but her first, Your Cuckoo Sings by Kind, is more grounded in reality, perhaps based in part on Dobrée's own childhood?

When the novel opens, Christine is about twelve years old (she's fifteen at the end of the novel, but I couldn't find an explicit reference to her age at the beginning). She is living with a foster family, along with her two brothers, their mother having run off with another man when they were very young and their father living in India. The Harrises are a clergyman and his wife, a cold-hearted, self-righteous woman who can't begin to comprehend Christine's emotional complexity. One of my favorite passages (and one of the only somewhat humorous passages) is about the presence in the Harris home of bamboo furniture, which must be concealed as thoroughly as possible:

It was here Christina acquired her shameful knowledge regarding bamboo furniture. She could never show surprise afterwards that such furniture existed. "Where does such appalling stuff come from?" Not for her the shrug of ignorance, for not only did she know of its existence, but she knew all the variations it was capable of. If any such piece had strayed into an otherwise solid room, instinetively Christina's expert eye came upon it, and she always felt guilty about it. It taught her to train her eyes to look out of the window or into the fire until such time as she could practise a moral nose-holding and swallow indifferently both bamboo and mahogany. She could not imagine anything worse than Mrs Harris's look of grieved betrayal the time she had caught her lifting the Indian table-cloth. For Mrs Harris had persevered, and done her best to disguise it. It was never mentioned, even in its most successful transformations, for they all understood that one of Mrs Harris's first actions on acquiring riches would be to exchange the bamboo stuff for something that could remain naked and unashamed.

Christina can do no right for Mrs. Harris, who imputes the worst possible motives to her every move, driving her to greater and greater reserve and, occasionally, to greater outbursts of rebelliousness:

The result of the general coldness was that she rapidly developed a side to herself which she thought would be acceptable to the people she came in contact with. Slowly, helped by circumstance, she produced a Christina for daily use, though she never lost the original Christina, who looked on, always a little aggrieved.

Happily, about a third of the way into the novel, her father takes her from the Harrises and she is placed with another family, the Deans, who are their opposites in virtually everything, including Mrs Dean's immediate affection and concern for Christine. But it is clear that, although her situation has improved, she already bears the scars of her unhappiness. Even here, she occasionally broods on the injustices of life:

Twice Christina had stood convicted, guiltless of the crime alleged. They were only minor sins, but her truthful denials had been added as lies, and the sum made a grave accusation that each denial fed, mounting to an enormous total. A broken saucer at supper in the school-room, and a bitch on heat escaped from the stables, were the charges. What more suspicious than the flushed face and the emphatic and angry denials? However, the whole episode had a lasting effect on Christina, who thereafter felt innocent of many faults, a feeling of being for ever wrongly accused and superlatively blameless; thus even when conscious of error, rejecting her guilt as a just requital for those two injustices. It was a logic learnt in her environment, where loose mentalities set off two understatements as justifying two overstatements. The incidents of false accusation revealed to Christina truth as a sorry beast, forced to bear the burdens of those strong enough to compel her. Whenever she began to brood, she would remember those offences against her. Eternally in the wrong, she clutched these wrongs to her as a talisman to stave off any indictment.

It's a very striking novel, at times quite brilliant in its observations of human nature and the perceptions of a child. One review notes that Dobrée rewrote the novel five times before she was satisfied with it, and that sort of meticulousness comes through loud and clear. Though I should note that the level of concentration that results, the distilled meaning in every line, is perhaps just a bit overwhelming. I sometimes got a bit dizzy in such high altitude.

It is, however, far darker in tone than The Red Centaur, and I have to note that it contains two disturbing (though oblique and nonexplicit) scenes of sexual assault (of some sort, it's not entirely clear) and brother/sister incest. L. M. Montgomery reportedly read the novel and said the former scene was "the vilest thing I ever read in a book" and then burned the book because "[n]othing but fire could purify it." (Presumably she didn't get round to the second scene, which might be just as well…) Such an extreme reaction to what, after all, are artfully written scenes, not exploitative or titillating at all, might say more about Montgomery's repressions or her own experiences than about the quality of the novel, but it's true enough that it's not for the faint-hearted. As much as anything, it is Christine's reaction to the scenes that will disturb, particularly her guilt about getting her beloved brother in trouble following the second scene.

But it's also true that Christine, as a character, comes vividly to life—a troubled, damaged girl, but one who makes sense. One might find her difficult, as even the kind Mrs. Dean does, but one is compelled to observe her, to see the wheels turn in her head. Her damage may even be the source of her brilliant and unusual mind, but one hopes, by the end of the novel when she is just fifteen, that it will offer her some form of freedom and opportunity that a less bruised and battered character might not find.

Given a choice of a re-read between The Red Centaur and Your Cuckoo Sings by Kind, there's no competition. I'll happily pick up Centaur for a second reading. But for those interested in a serious literary exploration of a troubled girl evolving into a troubled but perhaps liberated woman, the latter is worth the time as well.

MARJORIE DIXON (as MARJORIE MACK), The Red Centaur (1939)

Miss Mack's achievement is equally difficult—to tell a romantic story about Brittany (an aristocratic French family, a first love affair and an arranged marriage) through the eyes of an English child without laying a feminine claim to sensitivity. So often such books are like a continuous boast: Look what I notice; look how tenderly I feel. This is an admirable novel which shows no sign of being a first: quiet and unurgent, written in a prose exactly adapted to the subject: no strain, no overtones. Sometimes one remembers Tchehov: the sadness of revisiting a loved place after a few years' absence—the new villa above the beach, the unbearable children in what had been one's private cove.

I don't pretend to know exactly what Graham Greene meant (in this review from the Spectator in 1939) by that whole "feminine sensitivity" business, though I do think he's dead-on with the "quiet and unurgent" bit, one of my favorite characteristics in a novel. But at any rate his review intrigued me enough when I first came across it so that I flagged The Red Centaur as a book to get round to someday. Someday finally came recently, and I spent a decadently lazy weekend draped across the furniture reading this charming, summery, yet slightly melancholy novel.

The novel is in two parts. In the first, quiet, perceptive, solitary Laurel Maude is 8 years old. She's staying at the family's summer home in Brittany (must be nice) with her parents Hugh and Nellie, and her governess, Miss Gray, a likeable, literary type concerned with and already planning for her inevitable future as a distressed gentlewoman. Laurel's education is steeped in the mythology that Miss Gray loves, with a good helping of fairy tales and romance, and with the sometimes nonsensical songs and jingles her father sings. And in interesting ways Laurel's perceptions of the world around her take on a romantic, mythical quality. This is particularly true when her family meets the residents of the grand Chatêau des Ebihans across a narrow bay from their home.

The French Ebihans—Bertrand and his wife Jeanne, along with their lovely daughter Lise—have been away ever since Laurel can remember ("The Château des Ebihans might have been sleeping under a spell, with no hope of an awakening"), but as the story opens they have returned for the summer, in part because they have arranged a marriage for Lise with a local man (though Lise has yet to meet him). Bertrand turns out to be an ardent Anglophile and the families become fast friends, the Ebihans—with their flag emblazoned with the family crest, a red centaur—quickly becoming the central focus of Laurel's imagination.

It is indeed, as Greene pointed out, a quiet novel. Perhaps too quiet for some readers, but certainly not for me. In fact, I kept expecting the drama in the background to come more to the surface, and was rather anxious about how Dixon might handle it. It could easily have veered toward melodrama, or towards something too obvious, but Dixon wisely stuck to her guns in presenting the adult dramas only to the extent that Laurel is capable of apprehending them. She wonders about Bertrand's affection for all things English, and concludes that it must be because he's so fond of Lise's young English governess. And when the Ebihans' handsome cousin Gilles arrives, he comes to symbolize the red centaur itself for Laurel, but the reader must pay close attention and read between the lines to understand the impact he has on Lise.

Yet, despite the need for guessing a bit at the emotional turmoil and tragedy in the lives of the Ebihans, the novel was completely satisfying. The vagueness of the adult drama around Laurel very effectively evokes the way children really do perceive the dimly understood adult world. And Mack uses an intriguing technique to convey some of the things Laurel senses on some level but doesn't fully understand: she has vivid dreams which seem to echo the real-life drama mixed with the mythology that pervades her life.

The second part of the novel, and the conclusion of the Ebihans' story as well, take place two years later. The Maudes return to Brittany to find subtle—and not so subtle—changes to their idyllic world. The most obvious is that there has been a sort of barbarian invasion in the form a new villa nearby owned by a lower-class French family and their Philistine children. But there are other changes, some perhaps only now perceived by the slightly older Laurel.

It's high praise for me to say that The Red Centaur reminded me of other favorite novels not written for children but very much about childhood—including Rumer Godden's The Greengage Summer (and, really, An Episode of Sparrows and The Battle of the Villa Fiorita, among others), A. M. Champney's Miss Tiverton Goes Out, and Pamela Frankau's A Wreath for the Enemy, among others (do we need a separate list of these? hmmmm…). It reminded me particularly of Greengage and Wreath because The Red Centaur, too, has a charming, summery, holiday-themed setting, yet contains the slight edge of melancholy associated with a child's first dawning awareness of the sadder sides of life. It also fit nicely with my recent reading of Hilda Hewett's So Early One Morning, which I just blogged about last week.

This is not a book that can be easily shared in little snippets. It's more the elegant shape of the whole that stands out for me than it is short quotable bits. But here is a short sample that struck me as lovely:

So those three went off together, Laurel with the tears still wet on her cheeks but her treasure growing warm again in her hand, Miss Gray, who could never say things that made people laugh, and Lise, who had lost something long ago, almost beyond the bounds of memory.

And then, although this is not a humorous novel overall, I was amused by the following exchange, which one feels might have been taken from Dixon's own life, so true to life is it:

Laurel watched them go with disappointment written large across her face. "Can't we go too and see the horses?" she asked. "I know Lise will want us there." She sprang to her feet. "Father, won't you come with me?''

But her father remained seated on the ground, watching her quizzically, teasingly. "I'm digesting my lunch," he objected. "Lobster takes a long time to digest. Besides, I've got a bone in my leg."

Laurel had not yet ceased to be deceived by this formula. "Another one?" she cried in dismay. "And you had such a bad one the day before yesterday!''

It's all I can do to resist picking this book back up and starting it again from the beginning. I can't quite tell if it's one of those books that will reveal new depths with each reading, or if it's merely a very pleasant, enjoyable, summer vacation kind of novel which will serve to provide one with a sense of warm sunlight and sea breezes even on a wintry day. But I'm certainly planning to find out. In the meantime, however, I have still another impossibly obscure novel about childhood, from another dusty library shelf, which I've already started reading and will no doubt be writing about here soon…

By the way, I've already looked into Dixon's other writings, and have made an interlibrary loan request for her second (and, tragically, final) adult novel, Velveteen Jacket, written two years later. Thereafter, she seems to have turned to children's fiction and memoir for the duration of her too-short writing career. She had two children of her own, though interestingly neither were girls, so perhaps Laurel is based in part on her own childhood rather than inspired by her offspring. The children's titles, The King of the Fiddles (1941), Runaway Boy (1942), The Green-Coated Boy (1957), and The Forbidden Island (1960), all sound somewhat intriguing too (all the more so because Centaur proves how adept Dixon is at writing about children), and her two memoirs—Hannaboys Farm (1942) and The Educated Pin (1944) may also have to make their way to my shelves. She rounded out her career with Breton Fairy Tales (1971). Have any of you ever come across any of these books?

HILDA HEWETT, So Early One Morning (1948)

Well, now that the Middlebrow Syllabus is complete, I can get back to some other sorts of posts. In addition to working intensely on the massively revised version of my main list (soon to be retitled, by the way), I've also been quietly proceeding with my mission to track down and read some of the most obscure titles on my TBR list. As usual, not all of them have been buried treasures—some might just as well be quietly reburied. But I'm starting off with one of the real winners.

When the last wonderful issue of The Scribbler arrived a few weeks ago, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it contained a review about an author I had only just come across and was researching to add to my list. The review, by Sally Phillips, was about Harriet and the Cherry Pie (1963), which appeared to be the only book published by one "Clare Compton." However, when I was poking around a bit, I had already discovered that a book of the same title had appeared in the U.S. about the same time, by a Hilda Hewett. Thanks to information I had received from the redoubtable John Herrington, I was able to confirm that this was the same Hilda Hewett who had published 17 novels for adults, as well as one additional children's title, in the 1940s-1960s, and John was able to add that she was Hilda Marian Hewett, née Morley (25 Aug 1904 – 13 Dec 1991). (There must be some strange publishing logic that led to Hewett publishing this one title under a pseudonym in the U.K. but not in the U.S., but who knows what it is?)

I emailed Shirley Neilson, who publishes The Scribbler (as well as Greyladies Books), and shared this information, and there was lots of wonderful transatlantic correspondence and sharing of information with Shirley, Sally, and others. Both Shirley and I became intrigued with what we could find about Hewett's adult novels (though I'll let Shirley report on her findings in her own way), and I put the Interlibrary Loan wheels in motion and soon had So Early One Morning, the eighth of Hewett's 17 novels, in my hot little hands.

And oh my, what a lovely, lovely novel it is. It tells of a 13-year-old girl's first experience of falling in love (alas with a man far too old for her), and I immediately fell in love with it myself.

There's a blurb describing the book in the front of the edition I read, and I have to admit that my first reaction to its description of Pauline's first love with a grown man was that it seemed a bit too Lolita-ish to me—not necessarily a promising topic. Perhaps, I thought, "crush" would be more accurate? But by the end of the novel, my concerns had dissipated. Hewett was going for something more subtle and sensitive than a schoolgirl crush, and treating Pauline's feelings as real love, however unsophisticated, lent them depth and dignity.

Pauline as a narrator felt remarkably ahead of her time. She speaks to us in the cheerful, funny, sometimes poignant voice of a rather more intellectual Judy Blume heroine. It could almost pass as a modern novel set in the immediate post-war period merely to capture a historical mood. Pauline is actually speaking to us from the perspective of a few years further on, looking back at the idyllic but bittersweet summer when she was 13, the events of which she is only now really understanding. This allows her to be more eloquent and sophisticated in her narrative at times than any likely 13-year-old, and raises the book above the level of teen fiction.

The gist of the story is that Pauline dreams of being an actress, though her mother discourages her, and she often feels the emotional void left by her drama critic father's death several years before. She is spending the summer with her somewhat chilly, prudish mother, her grandmother (called Grum, to the disapproval of Pauline's mother), her step sister Philippa (called "Philip" to Pauline's "Paul"), and her fresh-air-and-exercise-obsessed Auntie Kit at a house in Sussex that Grum has rented from a mysterious friend. Philip's affection for Auntie Kit and enthusiasm for her back-to-nature obsessions leaves Pauline on her own more than usual, until Gran's godson Major Massey, a military man who seems to have had a nervous breakdown, comes to stay and Pauline helps to bring him out of his darkness by reminding him of his own childhood. In the process, Paul finds that there are considerable secrets to be unearthed about her father, her mother's dislike for the theatre, and even about the house they're staying in.

Some of the plot developments are foreseeable enough, though others are not, but what is certainly surprising is how carefully and subtly Hewett is able to evoke Pauline's development over the course of the summer and make the reader experience the dawning of her emotions firsthand. She takes her time to do this, and the novel has the leisurely pace of the summer holidays it describes, but that's what allows for such a lovely payoff in the end. There's a bit of I Capture the Castle here, and perhaps a bit of Guard Your Daughters, but it's mainly its own thing, and if anything it accomplishes its goal of sharing the experience of a girl on the verge of maturity better than either of those two favorites.

One of the subplots has to do with an opportunity to audition for a part in a new play by one of Pauline's favorite playwrights. Her logistical challenge is to convince her mother to allow her to take the part if she gets it, but the deeper challenge she takes on is to understand the teenage character she would portray, who is in love with a much older man. Although the audition itself is only a subplot, Paul's grasping at the character shows her development over just a few weeks. We progress from this passage early in the novel:

It was very odd. I went on thinking about it when I was in bed. Karen was so right in every other particular. I felt I could put her on as you put on a comfortable old shoe, but her falling in love with a man as old as her father was all wrong, like a sudden tight place that pinched in the shoe. Could Mervyn Mills have meant Karen to be a lot older, and might you do a thing like that at eighteen, I asked myself? But then, it couldn't be that because it gave Karen's age quite clearly in the stage directions.

To this passage near the end (no significant spoilers):

Life was a disappointing business, I thought sadly. Once I'd told myself that if only I could be Karen I should be perfectly happy, and here I was, utterly miserable. My thoughts went back to the beginning of it all—that idyllic afternoon at Hurstmonceaux. What was it I had thought then about life being made up of happy beginnings and sad endings? How true, how terribly true that was!

Along the way, Hewett repeatedly captures a sense of Phil's growing intellectual and sensual awareness in general, completely apart from Major Massey or emotional love.

I didn't stop for more than a passing glimpse of a big, cool hall before starting upstairs. The stairs were wide and polished and half-way up, in an angle of the staircase, I caught sight of a big blue and white vase whose cool colouring and lovely curves seemed to satisfy something in me that refuses to respond when Miss Cartwright says: "Now this is considered one of the finest lines Keats ever wrote." It's nearly always the way when you're expected to admire things, whereas when you discover a thing for yourself it's quite different.

She also has a flair for self-analysis and abstract thinking that would put Holden Caulfield in the shade. This comes out poignantly when her mother has scolded her (and perhaps traumatized her) for going swimming alone with the Major, an entirely innocent joy until her mother's anxiety casts a dark shadow across it:

I felt my cheeks bum. The palms of my hands felt sticky. Put like that it sounded somehow horrid. It hadn't been a bit like that. There'd been the sunlight dancing on the sea, the clean fresh smell of seaweed and salt water and the exhilaration of cool air on your limbs. Mummy's horrid, suggestive phrase didn't belong to the scene at all. To some extent of course, I was still a child, living in the age of innocence, but I swear that Mummy's phrase conjured up greedy eyes peering from behind tom curtains, dubious bed linen under pink-shaded lights and tom underwear trimmed with cheap lace—all that is sordid and furtive about the sexual relation. Naturally, at the time I couldn't have put anything of this into words. I didn't even begin to understand such things. I must have sensed it in the atmosphere, as even quite little children can sense sorrow or fear through words which in themselves are neither sad nor frightening.

There are so many lovely touches here I could end up quoting the whole novel to you. I could also quite easily go back and start reading the novel again from the beginning and probably notice all new things the second time around.

I think many of you would quite enjoy this book, if you're able to track down a copy. As for me, I've now ordered one of Hewett's later novels from Abe Books, and requested two more of her books from Interlibrary Loan (bless the Boston Athenaeum's little heart for so consistently being the only American source for many of the books I'm eager to find). So, you'll certainly be hearing more about Hilda Hewett!

A MIDDLEBROW SYLLABUS: the full list (in multiple forms)

It's appropriate that just as I'm coming to the end of this list, I came across a TLS piece from several months ago on the phenomenon of book lists. See here. Apart from being entertaining and informative (and despite the assurance that the ranking is more or less random) I was surprised and delighted to see their choice for #1...

At any rate, if you're coming to this list late, note that it was originally divided into ten posts, with a bit of commentary on each title. Please have a look at the first of those posts in particular, because it contains a lengthy explanation of the logic and goals of the list, without which it might be a bit bewildering (i.e. it is not a 100 "best" list). Below are links to all 10 individual sections, which in addition to my own comments often contain comments from readers with valuable suggestions of alternative books I should have chosen or additional books to be considered. I've also added all the links to each post for easy navigation:

(1) 100-91    (2) 90-81    (3) 80-71    (4) 70-61    (5) 60-51

(6) 50-41    (7) 40-31    (8) 30-21    (9) 20-11    (10) 10-1

Below, as promised, are short versions, without comments, of the complete list. I'm including three versions—ranked, alphabetical by author, and chronological by the date of each novel's first publication—because that's just how obsessive I am.

I found it particularly interesting to look at the list in chron order, which reveals a few interesting stats about the list that I hadn't considered in formulating it.

First, out of the 50 years from 1910 to 1960, the span covered by my blog, 44 are represented on the list. (This might inadvertently come in handy for bloggers doing century challenges or the like, where it's necessary to find works from a given year.) Five of those missing years fall in the first decade of my period, which is unsurprising since I know my reading and knowledge tends to focus a bit more on the later years. The other missing year, 1949, wouldn't have been missing at all if I could only have justified including The Matchmaker as my Stella Gibbons selection instead of Cold Comfort Farm, but alas…

Along the same lines, I had worried a bit about the list skewing too far toward the later years of my period, where a disproportionate amount of my reading takes me. But in fact the chron list shows that the halfway point falls in 1940, with 50 titles before and 50 titles after, so that's not too bad. And in addition to being the midway point, 1940 was, oddly (or not?), the best-represented year, with six of the titles published that year. It's probably not coincidental that that's the year that saw a rush of new fiction about the earliest days of World War II, and not yet affected by the paper shortages that would plague the publishing world later on.

If I had allowed myself, I could have continued to agonize about this list for several more months, switching out titles, raising the ranking of one book and lowering another, and generally fretting about trivial details (surely Enid Bagnold should have been in the top 20, perhaps another Ivy Compton-Burnett would have been better, etc. etc.). I could well have driven myself mad altogether and never got it posted at all. But all told I'm pleased with the results, and I hope you are too.

Thank you again for the warm reception you gave this list, and to everyone who commented, made suggestions, or provided additional information along the way!

RANKED

1) MARGHANITA LASKI, The Village (1952)

2) SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER, Lolly Willowes (1926)

3) BARBARA PYM, Excellent Women (1952)

4) E. M. DELAFIELD, Diary of a Provincial Lady (1930)

5) F. M. MAYOR, The Rector's Daughter (1924)

6) ELIZABETH TAYLOR, A Game of Hide and Seek (1951)

7) D. E. STEVENSON, Miss Buncle's Book (1934)

8) ELIZABETH BOWEN, The Heat of the Day (1948)

9) E. H. YOUNG, Miss Mole (1930)

10) DODIE SMITH, I Capture the Castle (1948)

11) DOROTHY L. SAYERS, Gaudy Night (1935)

12) MARGARET KENNEDY, The Feast (1950)

13) PAMELA FRANKAU, A Wreath for the Enemy (1954)

14) RUMER GODDEN, China Court (1960)

15) MOLLIE PANTER-DOWNES, One Fine Day (1947)

16) JOSEPHINE TEY, Miss Pym Disposes (1946)

17) LETTICE COOPER, The New House (1936)

18) NANCY MITFORD, The Pursuit of Love (1945)

19) ELIZABETH VON ARNIM, The Enchanted April (1922)

20) WINIFRED WATSON, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (1938)

21) ANNA BUCHAN (as O. Douglas), The Proper Place (1926)

22) AGATHA CHRISTIE, The Hollow (1946)

23) EVADNE PRICE (as Helen Zenna Smith), Not So Quiet… (1930, aka Stepdaughters of War)

24) JAN STRUTHER, Mrs Miniver (1939)

25) ELIZABETH ELIOT, Alice (1950)

26) ENID BAGNOLD, The Squire (1938)

27) ANGELA THIRKELL, Cheerfulness Breaks In (1940)

28) MARY CHOLMONDELEY, Red Pottage (1899)

29) STELLA GIBBONS, Cold Comfort Farm (1932)

30) WINIFRED HOLTBY, South Riding (1936)

31) DOROTHY WHIPPLE, Someone at a Distance (1953)

32) ROSE MACAULAY, The Towers of Trebizond (1956)

33) IVY COMPTON-BURNETT, A House and Its Head (1935)

34) NOEL STREATFEILD, The Winter Is Past (1940)

35) ANTONIA WHITE, Frost in May (1933)

36) BARBARA COMYNS, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead (1955)

37) CICELY HAMILTON, William—An Englishman (1919)

38) VITA SACKVILLE-WEST, All Passion Spent (1931)

39) RUBY FERGUSON, Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary (1937)

40) MARGERY SHARP, The Nutmeg Tree (1937)

41) DIANA TUTTON, Guard Your Daughters (1953)

42) A. M. CHAMPNEYS, Miss Tiverton Goes Out (1925)

43) NGAIO MARSH, Surfeit of Lampreys (1940, aka Death of a Peer)

44) ROSAMOND LEHMANN, Invitation to the Waltz (1932)

45) EDITH NESBIT, The Lark (1922)

46) KATE O'BRIEN, The Land of Spices (1941)

47) SYBILLE BEDFORD, A Favourite of the Gods (1963)

48) NORAH LOFTS, The Town House (1959)

49) WINIFRED PECK, Bewildering Cares (1940)

50) MARGERY ALLINGHAM, The Tiger in the Smoke (1952)

51) MARY RENAULT, The Friendly Young Ladies (1943)

52) DAPHNE DU MAURIER, Rebecca (1938)

53) EDITH OLIVIER, The Love-Child (1927)

54) MURIEL SPARK, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)

55) BRYHER, Beowulf (1956)

56) JANE & MARY FINDLATER, Crossriggs (1908)

57) REBECCA WEST, The Return of the Soldier (1918)

58) DORA SAINT (as Miss Read), Thrush Green (1959)

59) JOSEPHINE ELDER, The Encircled Heart (1951)

60) SHEILA KAYE-SMITH, Joanna Godden (1921)

61) F. TENNYSON JESSE, The Lacquer Lady (1929)

62) OLIVIA MANNING, The Great Fortune (1960)

63) SUSAN TWEEDSMUIR, Cousin Harriet (1957)

64) JEAN RHYS, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)

65) RICHMAL CROMPTON, Family Roundabout (1948)

66) DAISY ASHFORD, The Young Visiters (1919)

67) ANN BRIDGE, Peking Picnic (1932)

68) ADA LEVERSON, Love's Shadow (1908)

69) GEORGETTE HEYER, The Grand Sophy (1950)

70) RACHEL FERGUSON, Evenfield (1942)

71) STELLA BENSON, Living Alone (1919)

72) ROSE ALLATINI (as A. T. Fitzroy), Despised and Rejected (1918)

73) AMBER REEVES, A Lady and Her Husband (1914)

74) JANE DUNCAN, My Friend Muriel (1959)

75) MARY BELL, Summer's Day (1951)

76) NAOMI MITCHISON, The Bull Calves (1947)

77) GLADYS MITCHELL, When Last I Died (1941)

78) SUSAN ERTZ, Madame Claire (1923)

79) JOANNA CANNAN, Princes in the Land (1938)

80) G. B. STERN, The Matriarch (1924, aka Tents of Israel)

81) DOROTHY EVELYN SMITH, Miss Plum and Miss Penny (1959)

82) BETTY MILLER, On the Side of the Angels (1945)

83) MONICA DICKENS, Mariana (1940)

84) LEONORA CARRINGTON, The Hearing Trumpet (1974)

85) STORM JAMESON, Company Parade (1934)

86) ELIZABETH CADELL, The Lark Shall Sing (1955)

87) E. ARNOT ROBERTSON, Ordinary Families (1933)

88) HELEN ASHTON, Bricks and Mortar (1932)

89) ELIZABETH GOUDGE, The Bird in the Tree (1940)

90) RADCLYFFE HALL, The Well of Loneliness (1928)

91) ELIZABETH JENKINS, The Tortoise and the Hare (1954)

92) NORAH HOULT, There Were No Windows (1944)

93) MARY STEWART, Nine Coaches Waiting (1958)

94) MOLLY KEANE (as M. J. Farrell), Full House (1935)

95) MARY WEBB, Precious Bane (1924)

96) CLEMENCE DANE, Regiment of Women (1917)

97) VIOLET TREFUSIS, Hunt the Slipper (1937)

98) RUTH ADAM, I'm Not Complaining (1938)

99) CELIA BUCKMASTER, Village Story (1951)

100) ELINOR MORDAUNT, The Family (1915)

ALPHABETICAL BY AUTHOR

RUTH ADAM, I'm Not Complaining (1938) (#98)

ROSE ALLATINI (as A. T. Fitzroy), Despised and Rejected (1918) (#72)

MARGERY ALLINGHAM, The Tiger in the Smoke (1952) (#50)

DAISY ASHFORD, The Young Visiters (1919) (#66)

HELEN ASHTON, Bricks and Mortar (1932) (#88)

ENID BAGNOLD, The Squire (1938) (#26)

SYBILLE BEDFORD, A Favourite of the Gods (1963) (#47)

MARY BELL, Summer's Day (1951) (#75)

STELLA BENSON, Living Alone (1919) (#71)

ELIZABETH BOWEN, The Heat of the Day (1948) (#8)

ANN BRIDGE, Peking Picnic (1932) (#67)

BRYHER, Beowulf (1956) (#55)

ANNA BUCHAN (as O. Douglas), The Proper Place (1926) (#21)

CELIA BUCKMASTER, Village Story (1951) (#99)

ELIZABETH CADELL, The Lark Shall Sing (1955) (#86)

JOANNA CANNAN, Princes in the Land (1938) (#79)

LEONORA CARRINGTON, The Hearing Trumpet (1974) (#84)

A. M. CHAMPNEYS, Miss Tiverton Goes Out (1925) (#42)

MARY CHOLMONDELEY, Red Pottage (1899) (#28)

AGATHA CHRISTIE, The Hollow (1946) (#22)

IVY COMPTON-BURNETT, A House and Its Head (1935) (#33)

BARBARA COMYNS, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead (1955) (#36)

LETTICE COOPER, The New House (1936) (#17)

RICHMAL CROMPTON, Family Roundabout (1948) (#65)

CLEMENCE DANE, Regiment of Women (1917) (#96)

E. M. DELAFIELD, Diary of a Provincial Lady (1930) (#4)

MONICA DICKENS, Mariana (1940) (#83)

DAPHNE DU MAURIER, Rebecca (1938) (#52)

JANE DUNCAN, My Friend Muriel (1959) (#74)

JOSEPHINE ELDER, The Encircled Heart (1951) (#59)

ELIZABETH ELIOT, Alice (1950) (#25)

SUSAN ERTZ, Madame Claire (1923) (#78)

RACHEL FERGUSON, Evenfield (1942) (#70)

RUBY FERGUSON, Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary (1937) (#39)

JANE & MARY FINDLATER, Crossriggs (1908) (#56)

PAMELA FRANKAU, A Wreath for the Enemy (1954) (#13)

STELLA GIBBONS, Cold Comfort Farm (1932) (#29)

RUMER GODDEN, China Court (1960) (#14)

ELIZABETH GOUDGE, The Bird in the Tree (1940) (#89)

RADCLYFFE HALL, The Well of Loneliness (1928) (#90)

CICELY HAMILTON, William—An Englishman (1919) (#37)

GEORGETTE HEYER, The Grand Sophy (1950) (#69)

WINIFRED HOLTBY, South Riding (1936) (#30)

NORAH HOULT, There Were No Windows (1944) (#92)

STORM JAMESON, Company Parade (1934) (#85)

ELIZABETH JENKINS, The Tortoise and the Hare (1954) (#91)

F. TENNYSON JESSE, The Lacquer Lady (1929) (#61)

SHEILA KAYE-SMITH, Joanna Godden (1921) (#60)

MOLLY KEANE (as M. J. Farrell), Full House (1935) (#94)

MARGARET KENNEDY, The Feast (1950) (#12)

MARGHANITA LASKI, The Village (1952) (#1)

ROSAMOND LEHMANN, Invitation to the Waltz (1932) (#44)

ADA LEVERSON, Love's Shadow (1908) (#68)

NORAH LOFTS, The Town House (1959) (#48)

ROSE MACAULAY, The Towers of Trebizond (1956) (#32)

OLIVIA MANNING, The Great Fortune (1960) (#62)

NGAIO MARSH, Surfeit of Lampreys (1940, aka Death of a Peer) (#43)

F. M. MAYOR, The Rector's Daughter (1924) (#5)

BETTY MILLER, On the Side of the Angels (1945) (#82)

GLADYS MITCHELL, When Last I Died (1941) (#77)

NAOMI MITCHISON, The Bull Calves (1947) (#76)

NANCY MITFORD, The Pursuit of Love (1945) (#18)

ELINOR MORDAUNT, The Family (1915) (#100)

EDITH NESBIT, The Lark (1922) (#45)

KATE O'BRIEN, The Land of Spices (1941) (#46)

EDITH OLIVIER, The Love-Child (1927) (#53)

MOLLIE PANTER-DOWNES, One Fine Day (1947) (#15)

WINIFRED PECK, Bewildering Cares (1940) (#49)

EVADNE PRICE (as Helen Zenna Smith), Not So Quiet… (1930, aka Stepdaughters of War) (#23)

BARBARA PYM, Excellent Women (1952) (#3)

AMBER REEVES, A Lady and Her Husband (1914) (#73)

MARY RENAULT, The Friendly Young Ladies (1943) (#51)

JEAN RHYS, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) (#64)

E. ARNOT ROBERTSON, Ordinary Families (1933) (#87)

VITA SACKVILLE-WEST, All Passion Spent (1931) (#38)

DORA SAINT (as Miss Read), Thrush Green (1959) (#58)

DOROTHY L. SAYERS, Gaudy Night (1935) (#11)

MARGERY SHARP, The Nutmeg Tree (1937) (#40)

DODIE SMITH, I Capture the Castle (1948) (#10)

DOROTHY EVELYN SMITH, Miss Plum and Miss Penny (1959) (#81)

MURIEL SPARK, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) (#54)

G. B. STERN, The Matriarch (1924, aka Tents of Israel) (#80)

D. E. STEVENSON, Miss Buncle's Book (1934) (#7)

MARY STEWART, Nine Coaches Waiting (1958) (#93)

NOEL STREATFEILD, The Winter Is Past (1940) (#34)

JAN STRUTHER, Mrs Miniver (1939) (#24)

ELIZABETH TAYLOR, A Game of Hide and Seek (1951) (#6)

JOSEPHINE TEY, Miss Pym Disposes (1946) (#16)

ANGELA THIRKELL, Cheerfulness Breaks In (1940) (#27)

VIOLET TREFUSIS, Hunt the Slipper (1937) (#97)

DIANA TUTTON, Guard Your Daughters (1953) (#41)

SUSAN TWEEDSMUIR, Cousin Harriet (1957) (#63)

ELIZABETH VON ARNIM, The Enchanted April (1922) (#19)

SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER, Lolly Willowes (1926) (#2)

WINIFRED WATSON, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (1938) (#20)

MARY WEBB, Precious Bane (1924) (#95)

REBECCA WEST, The Return of the Soldier (1918) (#57)

DOROTHY WHIPPLE, Someone at a Distance (1953) (#31)

ANTONIA WHITE, Frost in May (1933) (#35)

E. H. YOUNG, Miss Mole (1930) (#9)

CHRONOLOGICAL BY PUBLICATION DATE

1899

MARY CHOLMONDELEY, Red Pottage

1908

JANE & MARY FINDLATER, Crossriggs

ADA LEVERSON, Love's Shadow

1914

AMBER REEVES, A Lady and Her Husband

1915

ELINOR MORDAUNT, The Family

1917

CLEMENCE DANE, Regiment of Women

1918

ROSE ALLATINI (as A. T. Fitzroy), Despised and Rejected

REBECCA WEST, The Return of the Soldier (1918)

1919

DAISY ASHFORD, The Young Visiters

STELLA BENSON, Living Alone

CICELY HAMILTON, William—An Englishman

1921

SHEILA KAYE-SMITH, Joanna Godden

1922

EDITH NESBIT, The Lark

ELIZABETH VON ARNIM, The Enchanted April

1923

SUSAN ERTZ, Madame Claire

1924

F. M. MAYOR, The Rector's Daughter

G. B. STERN, The Matriarch (aka Tents of Israel)

MARY WEBB, Precious Bane

1925

A. M. CHAMPNEYS, Miss Tiverton Goes Out

1926

ANNA BUCHAN (as O. Douglas), The Proper Place

SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER, Lolly Willowes

1927

EDITH OLIVIER, The Love-Child

1928

RADCLYFFE HALL, The Well of Loneliness

1929

F. TENNYSON JESSE, The Lacquer Lady

1930

E. M. DELAFIELD, Diary of a Provincial Lady

EVADNE PRICE (as Helen Zenna Smith), Not So Quiet… (aka Stepdaughters of War)

E. H. YOUNG, Miss Mole

1931

VITA SACKVILLE-WEST, All Passion Spent

1932

HELEN ASHTON, Bricks and Mortar

ANN BRIDGE, Peking Picnic

STELLA GIBBONS, Cold Comfort Farm

ROSAMOND LEHMANN, Invitation to the Waltz

1933

E. ARNOT ROBERTSON, Ordinary Families

ANTONIA WHITE, Frost in May

1934

STORM JAMESON, Company Parade

D. E. STEVENSON, Miss Buncle's Book

1935

IVY COMPTON-BURNETT, A House and Its Head

MOLLY KEANE (as M. J. Farrell), Full House

DOROTHY L. SAYERS, Gaudy Night

1936

LETTICE COOPER, The New House

WINIFRED HOLTBY, South Riding

1937

RUBY FERGUSON, Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary

MARGERY SHARP, The Nutmeg Tree

VIOLET TREFUSIS, Hunt the Slipper

1938

RUTH ADAM, I'm Not Complaining

ENID BAGNOLD, The Squire

JOANNA CANNAN, Princes in the Land

DAPHNE DU MAURIER, Rebecca

WINIFRED WATSON, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

1939

JAN STRUTHER, Mrs Miniver

1940

ELIZABETH GOUDGE, The Bird in the Tree

MONICA DICKENS, Mariana

NGAIO MARSH, Surfeit of Lampreys (aka Death of a Peer)

WINIFRED PECK, Bewildering Cares

NOEL STREATFEILD, The Winter Is Past

ANGELA THIRKELL, Cheerfulness Breaks In

1941

GLADYS MITCHELL, When Last I Died

KATE O'BRIEN, The Land of Spices

1942

RACHEL FERGUSON, Evenfield

1943

MARY RENAULT, The Friendly Young Ladies

1944

NORAH HOULT, There Were No Windows

1945

BETTY MILLER, On the Side of the Angels

NANCY MITFORD, The Pursuit of Love

1946

AGATHA CHRISTIE, The Hollow

JOSEPHINE TEY, Miss Pym Disposes

1947

NAOMI MITCHISON, The Bull Calves

MOLLIE PANTER-DOWNES, One Fine Day

1948

ELIZABETH BOWEN, The Heat of the Day

RICHMAL CROMPTON, Family Roundabout

DODIE SMITH, I Capture the Castle

1950

ELIZABETH ELIOT, Alice

GEORGETTE HEYER, The Grand Sophy

MARGARET KENNEDY, The Feast

1951

MARY BELL, Summer's Day

CELIA BUCKMASTER, Village Story

JOSEPHINE ELDER, The Encircled Heart

ELIZABETH TAYLOR, A Game of Hide and Seek

1952

MARGERY ALLINGHAM, The Tiger in the Smoke

MARGHANITA LASKI, The Village

BARBARA PYM, Excellent Women

1953

DIANA TUTTON, Guard Your Daughters

DOROTHY WHIPPLE, Someone at a Distance

1954

PAMELA FRANKAU, A Wreath for the Enemy

ELIZABETH JENKINS, The Tortoise and the Hare

1955

ELIZABETH CADELL, The Lark Shall Sing

BARBARA COMYNS, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead

1956

BRYHER, Beowulf

ROSE MACAULAY, The Towers of Trebizond

1957

SUSAN TWEEDSMUIR, Cousin Harriet

1958

MARY STEWART, Nine Coaches Waiting

1959

JANE DUNCAN, My Friend Muriel

NORAH LOFTS, The Town House

DORA SAINT (as Miss Read), Thrush Green

DOROTHY EVELYN SMITH, Miss Plum and Miss Penny

1960

RUMER GODDEN, China Court

OLIVIA MANNING, The Great Fortune

1961

MURIEL SPARK, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

1963

SYBILLE BEDFORD, A Favourite of the Gods

1966

JEAN RHYS, Wide Sargasso Sea

1974

LEONORA CARRINGTON, The Hearing Trumpet