‘"Bombs?" she gasped’: DOROTHEA TOWNSHEND, A Lion, A Mouse and a Motor Car (1915)

"Can it be me! Can it be me!" murmured Delia, as the train slowed and stopped at the private station. "This is a girl in a book, it isn't me at all!"

Delia Gwyn had spent the last ten years of her life in mothering her widowed father and two small brothers. She had vast experience in managing the village butcher and in planning the boys' winter garments--she had more than a slight acquaintance with Early Church Councils and the theories on the authorship of Homer, but of England in the nineteenth century she knew little. Still she had read the foreign correspondence of The Times to her father, and she knew something of European politics. Although she had never seen a play or danced at a ball, she knew that Sir Roger Bertram had so distinguished himself at the Courts of Vienna and Petersburg, that he had returned to England with all the éclat of a conquering hero. His mingled courtesy and audacity had distracted the diplomatists of Europe, but had averted more than one dangerous complication.

Delia Gwyn has had a distinctly uneventful life as a rector’s daughter, so when her well-to-do neighbor Lady Polwhele, at the suggestion of her gung-ho son Victor (nicknamed Polly), invites her to accompany her as her “spaniel” (general companion and dogsbody, though Lady Polwhele is too kind to take much advantage of the position) for a weekend house party at Bertramstone, family home of world-renowned diplomat Sir Roger Bertram, Delia is thrilled. And it seems that we are firmly in the realm of Jane Austen at Bertramstone, complete with its guardian ghost and a group of rowdy youngsters of whom Ms. Austen would surely have disapproved.

Dinner on the night of the Delia’s arrival is made memorable by the arrival of a Duchess:

The party was assembled, but one guest was lacking. The Duchess of Daventry was late, The Duke wandered up and down among the groups of guests evidently anxious for his dinner. The Bishop had engaged Lady John Kerr with half-whispered confidences, but the rest of the company had lapsed into the uncomfortable silence of people who do not want to waste good conversational openings before sitting down to table. The silence was broken by a crash and a scream. Instinctively every one in the hall wheeled towards the glass doors that shut off the grand staircase. A series of bumps, each bump accentuated by a shriek, followed the crash, and before any one could move, the swing doors were burst open, and into the midst of the petrified company dashed a large mat on which was seated a plump lady, gorgeous in satin and diamonds. She tobogganed in one long swoop down the hall, and from the crowd a wild voice shrilled out: "Achtung!" No other word broke the silence with which the petrified crowd stared at the apparition till the mad career suddenly came to an end at the very feet of the Bishop.

…

“Your dreadful stairs, Sir Roger! I slid down the whole length and landed on the mat!"

But otherwise, it’s rather rough going, as she’s ignored by her dinner companions and becomes the sworn enemy of the dreadful Miss Forbes, who resents Delia for having aroused Sir Roger’s kindness. Not only that, but she finds that high society can sometimes be rather dull:

Delia began to wonder if a Quaker's meeting might not even be livelier than Bertramstone for the younger ladies had all vanished, to drive to the meet, or to hunt, or to walk up to lunch with the shooters; and when Lady Polwhele announced, "Now we will have a nice quiet afternoon and you shall write all my letters for me," Delia felt she might better have been at home.

But she needn’t fear, as her life is about to get quite a lot more exciting. Through a series of utterly implausible yet perfectly entertaining events and more than a few coincidences, Delia’s friendship with Sir Roger sweeps her into international intrigue, complete with Russian princesses, a short stint in a Spanish prison, a near miss of an assassination attempt, and a dramatic rescue from a kidnapping attempt (most of these instigated by none other than the terrible Miss Forbes). Delia, with her practicality, intelligence, and unflappable presence of mind, finds that international intrigue isn’t that much more difficult to handle than managing a household, and Sir Roger, of course, soon finds her irreplaceable.

A Lion, a Mouse, and a Motor-Car is, with a few exceptions, not riotously funny (despite its Beverly Cleary-meets-Narnia title). It’s largely just plain silly. But its daft plot is so surprisingly well-done that it was genuinely difficult to put down, even though I was on our recent little jaunt to Carmel, California and was theoretically supposed to be “doing stuff” instead of “just reading”. (Fortunately Andy knows me better than that.) It’s pure escapism, and though published in 1915, it is set some years earlier to avoid any of the seriousness that World War I would have required.

It’s also terrifically rare, with no copies currently showing on Abe Books or on Bookfinder, so I have to give warm thanks to Kathy Reed, who managed to acquire a copy and was willing to lend it to me by mail. I'm sharing pics here of the lovely book itself, which was apparently presented to the Oxford Union Society by Townshend herself. Having spent its formative years in Oxford, the book now lives in Colorado, to where it has safely winged its way back now, none the worse for a whirlwind vacation in the City by the Bay.

Sadly, Townshend, about whom I know very little, seems to have written nothing else along these lines. She published a few children’s titles, a biography or two, and some historical fiction, but no other “fantasias” (as this book was subtitled). It’s a shame, as I could certainly have done with a few more silly, joyous adventures like this one.

I’ll leave you with a little nugget of wisdom from Sir Roger himself, which struck me as very true, about imagining the situations of others:

“It is a very awkward thing to try to wear our neighbours' shoes. We pity them if we are pinched; it doesn't strike us that the shoes may just fit their own wearers."

In almost every village in England...: F. M. MAYOR, Miss Browne's Friend (1914)

In almost every village in England a Miss Browne is to be found; in every town several Miss Brownes; in London they must be almost too many to count. We all know them, spinsters from thirty onwards, who are cheerfully devoting their lives to be of use and comfort to their families, their friends, their village, their town, and their country. Sometimes these objects of their goodness patronize them, sometimes they laugh at them, and sometimes they writhe a little under the benefits they are receiving; but they could not possibly get on without their Miss Brownes.

With this opening, there can be little doubt that we are back in the rich, slightly melancholy world of Flora MacDonald Mayor, who deserves, despite her relatively sparse output, to be considered one of the major authors of the 20th century. She's best known for her three brilliant, poignant novels of the lives of unmarried women in the early years of the century— The Third Miss Symons (1913), The Rector's Daughter (1924), and The Squire's Daughter (1929)—the second widely considered her masterpiece, though the others are lovely as well.

Apart from her three novels, Mayor seems to have published only three other works, which are almost entirely inaccessible. In 1901, she published her first book under the pseudonym Mary Strafford, Mrs. Hammond's Children, which has been referred to variously as a novel, a children's book, and a story collection for adults about children. Janet Morgan, in her intro to the Virago edition of The Squire's Daughter, refers to it intriguingly as stories “based on the relations among children and the kindnesses and cruelties they practise on one another.” (For what it's worth, the Glasgow Herald referred to it uninformatively as "A delightful set of pickles.") Regardless, unless you're in the British Library, you won't be able to read it.

Following Mayor's 1932 death of influenza and pneumonia, a volume of stories, mostly of ghosts and the supernatural, The Room Opposite, appeared in 1935. A small British publisher, Sundial Press, announced a reprint the better part of a decade ago, but it has never appeared and the original edition is hard to find indeed.

The third of Mayor's other works, described as "an exploration of a friendship between a suburban lady and a prostitute, published serially in the Free Church Suffrage Times”, Miss Browne's Friend had achieved more or less the level of myth for me. I was making plans, when the pandemic abated, to drive two hours to a University of California library that appears to have the Free Church Suffrage Times to attempt to copy it, when Michael Walmer emailed and announced the joyous news that he was reprinting it as the latest volume in his Zephyr Books series of classic short works (see here). Eureka! Rather a lot easier to retrieve it from the mailbox than to drive halfway across the state and fetch it off of microfilm.

Divided into four chapters (presumably the parts in which it appeared in serialization), the book could be described as a novella, though it's really little more than the length of a short story. But it's not the size that matters (in this case at least), for it's a fascinating little work that offers insights into Mayor's feelings about the role of unmarried women—including herself, whose engagement, at around age 30, ended tragically after a few weeks with the death of her fiancé in India in 1903. (Another thing which makes Mrs Hammond's Children a work I would sell a kidney to get hold of is that it's the one surviving work of Mayor's which pre-dates this tragedy—is it therefore a more cheerful, optimistic book, or was a practical, slightly melancholy perspective on the world always Mayor's? It's a crime that there are still these missing pieces in the ouevre of such an important author.)

Ethel Browne, perhaps a bit bored with her role as unpaid servant for her mother and two married brothers, and with keeping "all responsibilities from a younger sister who went to the Slade", reads an article one day about a Rescue Home (presumably primarily dedicated to prostitutes, though in 1914 Mayor had to be a bit coy about her descriptions) and decides to volunteer as a friend to young Mabel Roberts. I love Mayor's description of the Sister who greets her on her first visit to the home:

A Sister in nurse's dress greeted her: a Sister who somehow put one in mind of angels, although one surmises that angels are as a rule radiant and victorious, and this little Sister was tottering not very far from the brink of a nervous breakdown.

Ethel is shocked, in her very sheltered way, to find that most of the downtrodden are not nice-looking, but she is pleased that Mabel is the exception, which will soon remind Ethel not to make assumptions about appearances. Mabel has lots of difficulties, moving from job to job, and one begins to wonder if she isn't merely telling Ethel what she wants to hear.

I won't go into further details about the vicissitudes of the women's friendship, but I will say that we get lots of lovely, subtle comment on class and morality and the position of women in the early part of the 20th century. And the reactions of Ethel's mother and sister to her new friend are worth sharing:

"I really think," said her mother on her return, "it's a waste of time trapesing after that girl, and in the rain, too. Besides, it doesn't seem to me quite what one likes—and when there are so many excellent societies just for that purpose."

"And it's so foolish, Ethel, because those girls like that sort of life."

This consolation came from her younger sister, who was just as ignorant as girls of twenty-two in the protected classes have always been, but was so pathetically anxious not to be Victorian.

Those sorts of sentiments can of course still be heard today among those who don't find it worth their time to understand the complex causes of the problems described on the evening news.

At any rate, Michael Walmer has done us a wonderful service in making this crucial missing piece of Mayor's career widely available again. He publishes lots of other marvelous books as well—see his main website here—so please do support his efforts and encourage him to do more. Perhaps Mrs Hammond's Children and/or The Room Opposite will be coming along soon???

KATE HORN, Edward and I and Mrs. Honeybun (1910)

When Edward came in and told me that we were ruined, I was sitting in the peacock boudoir in Estcourt House, Park Lane, wondering whether life could possibly hold anything more monotonous than the existence of a woman of fashion.

  

You have to admit that it's an opening that's loaded with potential, and so after reading that line I happily settled in for what would surely be an enjoyable light-hearted weekend read. And for the most part, I was not disappointed. This tale of a fashionable aristocratic couple, Edward and Gabrielle, who are relegated to a country cottage, with only (gasp!) Mrs. Honeybun, a boozy charwoman, for an indoor servant and her equally challenging sometime beau, Cattermole, for a gardener/farm help, reminded me by turns of Denis Mackail's Greenery Street and E. M. Delafield's Provincial Lady novels.

For all the towering piles of novels which end in joyful teary-eyed weddings, it's surprisingly rare to find novels about couples that are already happily married and remain happily married throughout, so Horn's novel is a pleasant change of pace right from the start. And if at first it reads like a rather too-light romance of a rich couple facing adversity (but never too much adversity, of course), it is advanced somewhat beyond that level by the biting humor that occasionally surfaces and its mockery of upper crust assumptions and superficiality.

Often the humor is just in passing. I got a morbid chuckle from Gabrielle's sadness at the renting of their London house:

Estcourt House had been snapped up as soon as it was known that it was to be let, but to my disgust its new owners were some very rich people who had made their fortunes by driving pigs up into a machine and out again as sausages.

And of course some of the laughs are on the couple, who are not at all well-suited for country living:

"Well, well, darling, you know that you could not have killed that hen yourself," I said soothingly. "You remember how you tried once, and—and—"

The memory was such a painful one that silence fell between us for the moment. It had perhaps been more painful for the hen, but Edward looked in more kindly fashion at the recumbent Cattermole.

Much of the humor is at the expense of their pretentious nouveau-riche neighbor, Mrs. Spink, who married well and has adopted the approach of being more royal than the king in the niceties and poshness of everyday life:

"Thank you, Mrs. Spink," I said, measuring out the sugar slowly. "It is very kind of you to trouble about us; but the present arrangements suit us perfectly, so far. We cannot afford to keep any servants."

"Dear me," said Mrs. Spink, "how truly terrible! Now I cannot imagine an existence without a powdered footman."

I imagined that in the days when she weighed the butter and lard behind the counter she must have contented herself with the flour on her own head; but I merely said very softly that I thought her intelligence must be a limited one, and she looked sharply at me, evidently trying to reconcile the rings upon my fingers with my penurious condition.

I have to admit, though, the class satire of Horn's novel is a bit muted by her main characters' own class pretensions (which already come through a bit in the quotations above). For example, it's rather ironic, as Gabrielle mocks Mrs. Spink's absurdities, that Gabrielle herself has, just a few pages earlier, made this statement in all apparent seriousness:

It was much easier to tell the first footman, since all he said was: "Very good, my lord:" in the same tone in which he might have taken Edward's order for the motor brougham. But then footmen are always inferior beings, and how they ever fledge into butlers is a sheer matter of surprise to me.

Ultimately, the book's satirical slant struck me as a gentle poking of fun at the upper classes with whom it is clearly in sympathy, rather than any real attempt to deflate them. Uppity social climbers may not be viewed sympathetically, but those who are already at the airy heights of society are viewed sympathetically, even in their eccentricities.

This may or may not be a problem for most readers, depending on how comfortably one can slip into a rather superior mindset. I had little trouble enjoying Gabrielle's narrative, even when her viewpoint had little in common with my own. On the other hand, another element of Horn's novel was considerably more distressing for me. This passage between husband and wife, taken from the earliest pages of the novel when the two are still coping with their newfound poverty, might give a clue as to my critique:

"Little Souris, sweetheart Gabrielle, I thank God for you every day of my life-for your pure, innocent heart, and your loving, transparent soul, and, believe me, if I could spare you one pang of privation in all this, I would do it by taking every trouble on my own shoulders…"

" And nice broad ones they are," I said, with a little sob, as I patted them. "Only remember, Edward, that a wife's greatest happiness is to help her husband and to share everything with him, poverty as well as wealth; and really, considering what people can manage to live on in the country, we must have been very extravagant."

A tiny bit of such sentimentality is likely to go a long way with most modern readers, and I'm happy to say that for most of the book it is regularly diluted with good humor. However, the last third or so of the novel, when a tragedy (of sorts) occurs, descends far too much into melodrama for my taste, with Gabrielle in the role of downtrodden wide-eyed waif from just about any early Charlie Chaplin movie. (This is why I gravitate to the mid-20th century rather than its earliest years, as there seems to have been almost a requirement for authors to force their characters into such hand-wringing and teary-eyed convulsions.) And the novel's rather ridiculous deus ex machina ending also left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

However, these are really only quibbles, which I mention as much because I was frustrated that they weakened what was till then a very sweet, funny, and highly entertaining romp as because they are so terribly bad. For the most part, one can breeze right over these passages, and ultimately the novel remains a high-spirited, fun, and enjoyable comedy of married life. If it's never entirely plausible, and if its sympathies are always clearly with the upper classes it purports to mock, well, that didn't stop me from enjoying it quite a lot.

THE WAR LIST (S-Z)

A-C     D-K     L-R     S-Z

British women writing about war 1910-1960

At long last, here is the fourth and final part of my genre list devoted to British women writers who tackled themes related to the World Wars. In this section, such ubiquitous authors as Elizabeth Taylor, Angela Thirkell, and D. E. Stevenson rub shoulders with lesser-known writers like Ethel Sidgwick, Marguerite Steen, and Susan Tweedsmuir.

One of my own favorites in this section (as you'll realize from the length of the entry on her) is Joan Wyndham, whose distinctly "naughty" diaries of World War II are completely one of a kind, if perhaps not for all tastes.

My own copy of the influential Mrs. Miniver
(alas, not quite a first edition)

I've been dipping occasionally into Sylvia Townsend Warner's Selected Stories ever since picking it up at the book sale in September, and I've been noting how much the war permeates even stories written many years later. Which makes it all the more odd and perhaps disappointing that Warner never wrote a novel with a wartime setting.

And I wonder if Les Girls, Constance Tomkinson's memoir of her life as a dancer travelling in wartime Europe, could possibly be as entertaining as it sounds? Has anyone read it?

Do keep the suggestions and comments coming about any authors or books I've forgotten. Undoubtedly there are many. Hope you've enjoyed the list!

Bomb damage to St. Paul's during World War II

VITA SACKVILLE-WEST (1892-1962) (full name Victoria Mary Sackville-West, married name Nicolson) Poet, travel writer, novelist, and the inspiration behind Virginia Woolf's Orlando, Sackville-West is known for The Edwardians (1930) and All Passion Spent (1931), both adapted for television. She also experimented with sci-fi in Grand Canyon (1941) and with mystery in Devil at Westease (1947). Grand Canyon imagined the outcome of a German victory in World War II. She also published Country Notes in Wartime (1941), a compilation of short pieces on country life and gardening which had first appeared in The New Statesman and Nation, and The Women's Land Army (1944). Some of her letters, such as those in Vita and Harold: The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson (1992), also deal with the war, and Nicolson's diaries of the war years are themselves interesting and well-known. MAUREEN SARSFIELD (1899-1961) (pseudonym of Maureen Kate Heard, married name Pretyman, aka Maureen Pretyman) Author of two humorous mysteries now reprinted by Rue Morgue Press—Green December Fills the Graveyard (1945), set in a partially-bombed out manor house in the late years of the war, and A Dinner for None (1948). Sadly, Rue Morgue felt the need to give both books extraordinarily dull new titles for their reprints—Murder at Shots Hall and Murder at Beechlands respectively. Sarsfield also published one long-forgotten non-mystery, Gloriana (1946), and several children's books including Queen Victoria Lost Her Crown (1946). CONSTANCE [WINIFRED] SAVERY (1897-1999) Author of numerous children's books and adult novels including two with a school component—Redhead at School (1951) and The Golden Cap (1966); others are Pippin's House (1931), Moonshine in Candle Street (1937), Blue Fields (1947), Scarlet Plume (1953), and Breton Holiday (1963). Other of her works could deal with the war, but certainly Enemy Brothers (1943) belongs on this list—it's about a British airman who believes that a young German prisoner is actually his brother, who had been kidnapped many years before. Enemy Brothers was reprinted by American religious publisher Bethlehem Books in 2001. The physical version seems to be out of print, but the ebook is still available. DOROTHY L[EIGH]. SAYERS (1893-1957) (married name Fleming) Scholar and mystery writer known for her Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane novels, including Strong Poison (1930), Have His Carcase (1932), Murder Must Advertise (1934), and (the most acclaimed), The Nine Tailors (1934) and Gaudy Night (1935). After the 1930s, Sayers wrote no more novels, though she did write one short story featuring Lord Peter during World War II. "Tallboys," written in 1942, did not appear until 1971, in the collection Striding Folly (1971). She also published, in the Spectator in 1940, a series of fictional letters from and to Peter Wimsey, Harriet Vane, and others of their circle, very much focused on the early days of the war. GLADYS HENRIETTA SCHUTZE (1884-1946) (née Raphael, earlier married name Mendl, aka Henrietta Leslie, aka Gladys Mendl) Outspoken pacifist and author of numerous novels, including The Straight Road (1911), After Eight O'Clock (1930), Mother of Five (1934), and her historical Mogford Trilogy (1942-1946). A Mouse with Wings (1920) wrestles with feminine pacifism versus masculine idealism in the Great War. Mrs. Fischer's War (1930), her best-known work, was based on Schutze's own misfortunes in World War I as a result of her German name and husband. BEATRICE [KEAN] SEYMOUR (1886–1955) (née Stapleton) Prolific popular novelist whose debut, Invisible Tides (1919), deals with World War I from the perspective of a woman who stayed at home. Other titles include The Hopeful Journey (1923), Three Wives (1927), Maids and Mistresses (1932), Fool of Time (1940), and Buds of May (1947). MARGERY SHARP (1905-1991) (full name Clara Margery Melita Sharp, married name Castle) Novelist and children's author known for her children’s series starting with The Rescuers (1959) and for numerous light humorous novels including The Nutmeg Tree (1937), Harlequin House (1939), The Stone of Chastity (1940), Cluny Brown (1944), and The Foolish Gentlewoman (1948). Sharp's own experiences living through the bombing of London show up in Britannia Mews (1946), considered one of her best novels. Cluny Brown, though published in wartime, is set in 1938. The Foolish Gentlewoman follows the inhabitants and neighbors of a country estate as they return home after the war. JANE SHAW (1910-2000) (pseudonym of Jean Bell Shaw Patrick, married name Evans, aka Jean Bell) Prolific author of more than three dozen children's books, including family and adventure tales as well as the Susan series of school-related stories. Some of her other wartime books may include spy or other war-related themes, but House of the Glimmering Light (1943) is definitely a wartime spy adventure (thank you for that tidbit, CallMeMadam!).  Other titles include Breton Holiday (1939), Highland Holiday (1942), Susan Pulls the Strings (1952), Crooked Sixpence (1958), and Crooks Tour (1962). ETHEL SIDGWICK (1877-1970) Novelist whose early works received critical praise, while later works were lighter; best known are A Lady of Leisure (1914), Hatchways (1916), and Dorothy's Wedding (1931), the last intriguingly described as being about the minutiae of daily life in two villages. Jamesie (1918) is an epistolary novel about the impacts of World War I on an upper class English family. EDITH SITWELL (1886-1964) Important modernist poet and bestselling biographer—The Queens and the Hive (1962) focused on Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots—Sitwell also wrote one experimental novel, I Live under a Black Sun (1937), which mixes autobiographical events with the life of Jonathan Swift. Sitwell wrote no fiction about the war, but was acclaimed for her wartime poetry, included in such collections as Street Songs (1942), The Song of the Cold (1945) and The Shadow of Cain (1947). In particular, her poem "Still Falls the Rain," about the Blitz, became famous, and was later set to music by Benjamin Britten. BARBARA SKELTON (1918-1996) (married names Connolly, Weidenfeld, and Jackson) Author of two novels—A Young Girl's Touch (1956) and the darkly humorous A Love Match (1969)—and one story collection, Born Losers (1965).  Skelton is probably best known now for her memoirs Tears Before Bedtime (1987) and Weep No More (1989), the former of which includes her experiences in World War II. DOROTHY EVELYN SMITH (1893-1969) (née Jones) Novelist whose work ranged from romantic melodrama, as in Lost Hill (1952), to dark comedy, in Miss Plum and Miss Penny (1959), to the war-themed He Went for a Walk (1954), in which a boy made homeless by the Blitz finds his way across wartime England. The last has been recommended on the D. E. Stevenson discussion list. Other titles include My Lamp Is Bright (1948), The Lovely Day (1957), and Brief Flower (1966). EMMA SMITH (1923-     ) (pseudonym of Elspeth Hallsmith, married name Stewart-Jones) Best known for her novel The Far Cry (1949, reprinted by Persephone), Smith also wrote Maidens' Trip (1948, reprinted by Bloomsbury), a memoir of working on the canals of England during World War II, and a late novel, The Opportunity of a Lifetime (1978). MAY SMITH (1914-2004) Schoolteacher and diarist, whose witty war diaries, telling of life as a teacher in a village near Derby, were published by Virago as These Wonderful Rumours!: A Young Schoolteacher's Wartime Diaries 1939-1945 (2012). STEVIE SMITH (1902-1971) (full name Florence Margaret Smith) Well-regarded poet and critic who also published three eccentric novels, Novel on Yellow Paper (1936), in which Smith’s alter-ego, a secretary named Pompey, is introduced, Over the Frontier (1938), and The Holiday (1949), all reprinted by Persephone. The last of these was actually written in the final years of the war, but when it was published a few years later the publisher felt that readers were no longer interested in the war. Smith revised the novel and removed or veiled many of the references to wartime conditions. It still retains an oddly claustrophobic feel, however, which surely comes from the pervasive fatigue and resignation to fate that seems to characterize the final years of the war. A few more short wartime writings appeared in Me Again, which collected numerous previously unpublished or uncollected pieces by Smith. NANCY SPAIN (1917-1964) Pioneering journalist, TV personality, biographer, children's author, and co-founder of the feminist She magazine, Spain wrote three memoirs as well as humorous mysteries such as Death Before Wicket (1946). Her novel The Kat Strikes (1955), set in postwar London, received particular acclaim. In addition, her first published work, Thank You, Nelson (1945), was a memoir of her own experiences in the war. The paperback edition featured the blurb, "The Irrepressible Nancy Spain's Witty, Vigourous and Inspiring Account of the W.R.N.S. at War." MURIEL SPARK (1918-2006) (née Camberg) Major novelist whose works combine dark humor with a Catholic sensibility; her most acclaimed works include Memento Mori (1959), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), The Girls of Slender Means (1963), Loitering With Intent (1981), and A Far Cry from Kensington (1988). The Girls of Slender Means takes place in a London boarding-house for girls during the final days of World War II. FREYA STARK (1893?-1993) (married name Perowne) Best known for travel books like The Valleys of the Assassins (1932) and A Winter in Arabia (1940), Stark also wrote several significant memoirs, including Traveller's Prelude (1950) and Dust in the Lion’s Paw (1961), the latter of which covers her wartime years, which included frequent travel in the Middle East and beyond in her work for the Ministry of Information. MARGUERITE [ELENA MAY] STEEN (née Benson, aka Jane Nicholson, aka Lennox Dryden) Popular novelist active from the 1920s-1970s; her novel Matador (1934) was a book club selection and The Sun Is My Undoing (1941), about the Atlantic slave trade, was a bestseller. Her 1942 novel Shelter, published under the pseudonym Jane Nicholson, is not necessarily the best example of "Blitz lit" available but is stylistically quite interesting, incorporating modernist techniques. Steen also published two memoirs of literary life, Looking Glass (1966) and Pier Glass (1968). D[OROTHY]. E[MILY]. STEVENSON (1892-1973) (married name Peploe) Popular novelist whose best-known works include the hilarious Miss Buncle's Book (1934) and its sequels and the autobiographical Mrs. Tim series (1934-1952). The third Miss Buncle entry, The Two Mrs. Abbotts (1943), follows the characters into wartime, where food shortages and German spies are tackled as cheerfully as romantic entanglements and childrearing. Mrs. Tim also has a wartime entry, Mrs. Tim Carries On (1941), which is among my favorites. Other Stevenson works dealing with the war in one form or another include The English Air (1940), Spring Magic (1941), Crooked Adam (1942), Listening Valley (1944), Amberwell (1955), and Sarah Morris Remembers (1966). Celia's House (1943) has sections set during both World War I and World War II. The Four Graces (1946) is set in the final days of the wara, and Stevenson also published several novels after the war that deal prominently with postwar themes, including Mrs. Tim Gets a Job (1947), Kate Hardy (1947), Young Mrs. Savage (1948), Vittoria Cottage (1949), and Summerhills (1956). Still Glides the Stream (1959) also has a WWII connection, as its plot centers around a letter written by a soldier during the war but only received by his sister years later. JOYCE STOREY (1917-2001) Popular memoirist whose humorous and colorful work includes Our Joyce 1917-1939 (1987), Joyce's War (1990), and Joyce's Dream: The Post-War Years (1995); these three volumes were condensed into a one-volume edition called The House in South Road in 2004. LESLEY STORM (1898-1975) (pseudonym of Mabel Margaret Doran Clark, née Cowie) Screenwriter, playwright, and novelist, known for her treatment of gender issues and marriage. Her novels include Lady, What of Life? (1927), Small Rain (1929), Robin and Robina (1931) and Just as I Am (1933), but she is largely remembered for her popular plays, including Heart of a City (1942), which takes place during the Blitz, and Great Day (1945), which presents preparations by the Women's Institute of an English village for a unexpected visit from Eleanor Roosevelt. Both were made into films. MARJORIE STRACHEY (1882-1962) Sister of Dorothy and Lytton, Marjorie Strachey published a collection, Savitri and Other Women (1920), and three novels—David the Son of Jesse (1921), The Nightingale (1925), about Chopin, and The Counterfeits (1927), about a woman adapting to peacetime life after nursing in WWI. NOEL STREATFEILD (1895-1986) (aka Susan Scarlett) Known for children's fiction such as Ballet Shoes (1936) and Curtain Up (1944, aka Theatre Shoes), Streatfeild wrote serious novels as well as her romantic and family-themed novels under the pseudonym Susan Scarlett. Of the latter, Summer Pudding (1943) and Murder While You Work (1944) are certainly set during the war, and Poppies for England (1946) is evocative in its immediate postwar setting. Among her "serious" novels, The Winter Is Past (1940) deals with life in a country house in wartime, I Ordered a Table for Six (1942) is bleak but intriguing, and Saplings (1945, reprinted by Persephone) is a compelling family story about the lingering effects of the Blitz. Among her children's fiction, The Children of Primrose Lane (1941) is an adventure story making use of wartime atmosphere, Harlequinade (1943) follows a group of circus children sent to the countryside to ride out the war, and Party Frock (1946) is about children in an English village at the very end and immediately after the war (one character's parents are in a prison camp). The aforementioned Curtain Up was originally set against the backdrop of war, but apparently most subsequent reprints of the book edit out the war-related content. JAN STRUTHER (1901-1953) (pseudonym of Joyce Anstruther, married names Graham and Placzek) Poet and essayist immortalized by her creation of Mrs. Miniver (1939), derived from a series of articles she wrote for The Times about a family’s life in Chelsea just before WWII, and made into an Oscar-winning film in 1942 (which extended Struther's work to include the outbreak of war and the Blitz). Winston Churchill famously said that the book did more for the war effort than a flotilla of battleships. Struther’s other work includes poetry and the essay collections Try Anything Twice (1938) and A Pocketful of Pebbles (1946). GERALDINE SYMONS (1909-1997) (aka Georgina Groves) Known for a children's series featuring Pansy and Atalanta, two children who find themselves in major historical events, including the suffrage movement in Miss Rivers and Miss Bridges (1971); her three adult novels are All Souls (1950), French Windows (1952), and The Suckling (1969). Her novel Now and Then (1977, published in the U.S. as Crocuses Were Over, Hitler Was Dead) is a time-slip story of a girl moving with her family to a country estate and occasionally slipping back into World War II when she befriends meets a gardener and his dog from those earlier years. ETHEL M[ARY]. TALBOT (1880-1944) One of the major authors of girls' school stories from 1919 to the 1940s; titles include The School on the Moor (1919), Betty at St Benedick's (1924), The School at None-Go-By (1926), Schoolgirl Rose (1928), The Mascot of the School (1934), and The Warringtons in War-Time (1940). LAURA TALBOT (1908-1966) (pseudonym of Ursula Winifred Stewart Chetwynd-Talbot, married name Hamilton) Wife of novelist Patrick Hamilton, known primarily for The Gentlewomen (1952), about disruptions of class identity brought about by World War II, which was reprinted by Virago in the 1980s. Talbot also wrote four other novels—Prairial (1950), Barcelona Road (1953), The Elopement (1958), and The Last of the Tenants (1961)—about which information is sparse. ELIZABETH TAYLOR (1912-1975) (née Coles) Acclaimed if still underrated author of twelve novels, four story collections, and a children's novel. Some of her most famous novels include At Mrs. Lippincote's (1945), A Game of Hide and Seek (1951), Angel (1957, filmed by François Ozon in 2007), Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (1971, filmed in 2005 with Joan Plowright in the lead), and Blaming (1976). Her incomparable short fiction has now been compiled in Virago's Collected Stories. Although her second novel, Palladian (1946), rather oddly seems to take place in a world where no war has occurred, At Mrs. Lippincote's is one of my favorite evocations of the fatigue and frayed nerves of the final years of the war, and A View of the Harbour (1947) is an atmospheric glimpse of life in the immediate aftermath of war. Several of Taylor's early stories also feature the war, either in the foreground or as a backdrop. EVA MABEL TENISON (1880-1961) Historian, biographer, and novelist; she wrote a biography of poet Louise Imogen Guiney in 1923. Tenison was also the author of at least three novels—The Valiant Heart (1920), Alastair Gordon, R.N. (1921), and The Undiscovered Island (1924), set in France during WWI. JOSEPHINE TEY (1897-1952) (pseudonym of Elizabeth MacKintosh, aka Gordon Daviot) Novelist, playwright, and mystery writer, known for Miss Pym Disposes (1946), a humorous mystery set at a girls' school, Brat Farrar (1949), To Love and Be Wise (1950), and The Daughter of Time (1951), which "solves" the mystery of Richard III and the Princes in the Tower. None of her fiction seems to address World War II head-on, but The Franchise Affair (1948) is very distinctly set in the immediate postwar period and makes excellent use of that atmosphere. ANGELA THIRKELL (1890-1961) (née Mackail, later married name McInnes) Author of the popular Barsetshire Chronicles, nearly 30 humorous, interwoven novels set in the fictional county created by Trollope, beginning with High Rising (1933). Her wartime entries in the series are particularly entertaining, and include Cheerfulness Breaks In (1940), Northbridge Rectory (1941), Marling Hall (1942), Growing Up (1943), The Headmistress (1944), and Miss Bunting (1945). Peace Breaks Out (1946) features the transition into peacetime, returning soldiers, and the resulting recovery and readjustments of series characters. Thirkell's first postwar titles, such as Private Enterprise (1947) and Love Among the Ruins (1948), also trace postwar hardships and concerns. HELEN THOMAS (1877-1967) (née Noble) Married to novelist and war poet Edward Thomas, who was killed in battle in 1917, Thomas later wrote two acclaimed memoirs of their life together, As It Was (1926) and World Without End (1931). RUBY [SIDE] THOMPSON (1884-1970) Diarist who used her diaries as a release from an unhappy marriage; Thompson's prewar diaries were published as Ruby: An Ordinary Woman in 1995; her great-granddaughter has now begun publishing her WWII diaries, starting with World War II London Blitz Diary (2013). SYLVIA THOMPSON (1902-1968) (married name Luling) Novelist best known for The Hounds of Spring (1926), about the repercussions of World War I. The war is also a backdrop in The Rough Crossing (1921), and in Chariot Wheels (1929), according to Sharon Ouditt, "the war appears as snapshots of the past: a suffragette governess becomes a WAAC; a mother cries when she sees her young son in uniform; a girl visits a wounded soldier." The Gulls Fly Inland (1941) is set during 1939-1940, so presumably includes some mentions of the war, but a contemporary review suggests that it focuses very much on interpersonal relations instead. And The People Opposite (1948) is set in the immediate postwar and deals lightly with two families—one rich and unhappy, the other poor and happy. Among the characters is a young invalided soldier trying to get back in the swing of things after a long hospitalization. Other of Thompson's titles include Battle of the Horizons (1928) Winter Comedy (1931), Breakfast in Bed (1934), and Third Act in Venice (1936). VIOLETTA THURSTAN (1879-1978) (full name Anna Violet Thurstan) Novelist and Red Cross nurse. Field Hospital and Flying Column (1915) is her journal about her experiences serving in Belgium and Russia, written while recovering from a shrapnel wound. Much later she published a memoir of the war entitled The Hounds of War Unleashed (1978). In the 1960s, Thurstan published two novels, Stormy Petrel (1964) and The Foolish Virgin (1966), about which little information is available. GILLIAN [ELIZABETH] TINDALL (1938-     ) (married name Lansdown) Daughter of Ursula Orange, whom she discusses in Footprints in Paris: A Few Streets, A Few Lives (2009); author of a dozen novels beginning with No Name in the Street (1959), before turning in recent years to non-fiction centered on towns and cities. The Intruder (1979) is about a young Englishwoman and her son stuck in occupied France during World War II. Her other fiction includes The Water and the Sound (1961), The Youngest (1967), Fly Away Home (1971), and Looking Forward (1983). GILLIAN [ELIZABETH] TINDALL (1938-     ) Daughter of Ursula Orange, who writes about her mother in Footprints in Paris: A Few Streets, A Few Lives (2009); Tindall published a dozen novels beginning with No Name in the Street (1959), before turning in recent years to biographical non-fiction centered on towns and cities. Her novel The Intruder (1979) is about a young Englishwoman and her son stuck in occupied France during World War II. LILY TOBIAS (1887-1984) (née Shepherd) Born in Wales to Jewish immigrant parents, Tobias is best known for Eunice Fleet (1933), a novel about conscientious objectors in World War I, which I first discovered from a review by dovegreyreader back in 2009.  Her other works include My Mother's House (1931), Tube (1935), and The Samaritan (1939, subtitled "An Anglo-Palestinian Novel"). BARBARA EUPHAN TODD (1890-1976) (married name Bower, aka Barbara Euphan) Playwright, poet, novelist and children's writer, author of the successful Worzel Gummidge children's books. Todd also wrote Miss Ranskill Comes Home (1946, reprinted by Persephone), a World War II comedy about a woman, stranded on an island since before the war, who is finally rescued and must adapt to wartime life. Darlene at Cosy Books reviewed it enthusiastically last year, and it's a favorite of mine too. Todd also collaborated on two novels with her husband, John Graham Bower—South Country Secrets and The Touchstone (both 1935). CONSTANCE [AVARD] TOMKINSON (1915-1995) (married name Weeks) Daughter of a clergyman, Tomkinson debuted on Broadway at age 18; she remains best known for Les Girls (1956), a memoir of her time as a dancer in Europe during WWII; she wrote three more memoirs, African Follies (1958), What a Performance! (1962), and Dancing Attendance (1965). P[AMELA]. L[YNDON]. TRAVERS (1899-1996) [pseudonym of Helen Lyndon Goff) Known for Mary Poppins (1934) and its sequels, including Mary Poppins Comes Back (1935), Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1944), and Mary Poppins in the Park (1952), Travers also wrote I Go by Land, I Go by Sea (1941), about evacuees in World War II, and the memoir Moscow Excursion (1934). MARY TREADGOLD (1910-2005) BBC radio producer and children's author, best known for her classic We Couldn't Leave Dinah (1941), about children who miss the evacuation of a fictional Channel island (because they can't leave their horse behind) and end up aiding the resistance to the Nazis. That book is mentioned quite regularly in histories of World War II fiction and children's fiction. Apparently there's also a sequel, The Polly Harris (1949), which follows the children into the immediate postwar years. No Ponies (1946) is set in France just after the war and tackles the very adult issue of Nazi collaborators. Treadgold's later works include The Running Child (1951) and The Winter Princess (1962). FRANCES [MARY] TURK (1915-2004) Prolific popular author of light romantic novels. At least two of her works feature wartime themes: Candle Corner (1943) is about an RAF pilot recovering from injuries on a farm—naturally, romance follows; and The Five Grey Geese (1944) is a lively, gung-ho tale about a group of young Land Girls (who also, naturally, find romance)—I had fun with it, but don't expect too much… Other Turk titles include Ancestors (1947), Salutation (1949), and Dinny Lightfoot (1956). SUSAN TWEEDSMUIR (1883–1977) (née Grosvenor, married name Buchan, Tweedsmuir comes from her title, Baroness Tweedsmuir) Biographer, memoirist, children's writer, and novelist, known for Cousin Harriet (1957), about a pregnant unmarried girl in Victorian England. Other works include The Scent of Water (1937) and several memoirs starting with The Lilac and the Rose (1952). Her late novel, The Rainbow Through the Rain (1950), is apparently partly set in England and partly in Canada, and at least some of it takes place during World War II. MARY AUGUSTA WARD (1851-1920) (née Arnold, aka Mrs. Humphry Ward) Primarily known for Victorian novels like Robert Elsmere (1888) and David Grieve (1892), Ward produced two particularly well-received novels during World War I—Lady Connie (1916), set in 19th century Oxford, and Missing (1917), about a woman who finds "spiritual freedom" as a result of the war. Another novel from the war years which is probably less sympathetic for modern readers is her 1915 anti-suffrage novel Delia Blanchflower. Ward also wrote, at least initially with the encouragement of former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, three books of war reportage—or propaganda, depending on your perspective—which were credited with helping to bring the U.S. into the war.  SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER (1893-1978) Novelist, poet, and expert on English church music. Her odd, passionate works include Lolly Willowes (1926), a brilliant novel of spinsterhood, Summer Will Show (1936), The Corner that Held Them (1948), a saga of a medieval convent, The Flint Anchor (1954), and many acclaimed stories. Among her stories are some powerful evocations of wartime England—particularly those collected in A Garland of Straw (1943) and The Museum of Cheats (1947). Her Diaries, published by Virago, are heavily edited but have some vivid thoughts and reactions to the events of the Blitz and the war in general. HILARY WAYNE (dates unknown) (pseudonym of Flora Sturgeon?) Not to be confused with Joan Mary Wayne Brown, who sometimes wrote as Hilary Wayne, this author wrote a memoir, Two Odd Soldiers (1946), about her exploits with her daughter in the ATS during WWII. The British Library suggests this Wayne is a pseudonym for Flora Sturgeon, but I can't confirm. BEATRICE WEBB (1858-1943) (née Potter) Prolific political writer, prominent socialist, and memoirist, whose autobiographies, beginning with My Apprenticeship (1922), provide important background to the politics of her day. But her diaries, which spanned six decades from 1873, when Webb was only 15, until not long before her death in 1943, are the more in-depth resource, and include her politically-engaged thoughts and actions during World War I and in the early years of World War II. The diaries were published in their most complete form in four volumes from 1982 to 1985, but there has since been a more manageable one-volume abridgement published in 2001. PATRICIA WENTWORTH (1878-1961) (pseudonym of Dora Amy Elles, married names Dillon and Turnbull) Novelist who published several historical romances before turning to her successful Miss Silver mystery series. She published regularly from 1910 until just before her death in 1961. Several of her wartime mysteries use the war as a backdrop, including The Chinese Shawl (1943), The Clock Strikes Twelve (1944), Miss Silver Deals With Death (1944, aka Miss Silver Intervenes), The Key (1944), and The Traveller Returns (1945, aka She Came Back), the last set just after the end of the war, when a woman thought to have been killed in France suddenly reappears. Several postwar titles make retrospective reference to the war, but The Case of William Smith (1948) is probably most prominent, featuring a returning soldier with amnesia. The deaf main character of The Listening Eye (1955) is described as having lost her hearing in a bombing raid during the Blitz. REBECCA WEST (1892-1983) (pseudonym of Cicily Isabel Andrews, née Fairfield) Novelist, journalist, and travel writer, best known for the semi-autobiographical family saga The Fountain Overflows (1957); her debut, The Return of the Soldier (1918), in which a soldier with shellshock struggles to remember two very different women who love him, is considered an important novel of World War I. West does not seem to have written any major fiction about World War II, but The Phoenix: The Meaning of Treason (1949) focuses on Brits, including William Joyce (aka Lord Haw-Haw), who worked for Germany during the war, and A Train of Powder (1955) features her accounts of the Nuremberg trials. Other works include The Judge (1922), Harriet Hume (1929), The Thinking Reed (1936), and The Birds Fall Down (1966), as well as Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), a massive exploration of the culture of the Balkans. DOROTHY WHIPPLE (1893-1966) (née Stirrup) Popular novelist whose works have been revived by Persephone in recent years, including High Wages (1930), Greenbanks (1932), The Priory (1939), They Were Sisters (1943), and her powerful final work, Someone at a Distance (1953), about the destruction of a happy marriage. The Priory is set during the leadup to the war, and features a poignant scene in which a pregnant woman imagines her chances of surviving a bombing raid. (As a side note, E. M. Delafield's Provincial Lady in Wartime, published the following year, recommends The Priory to a friend as the perfect wartime reading.) They Were Sisters (1943), though written during war, is actually set in the 1930s. The story collection Persephone put together a few years ago, The Closed Door and Other Stories includes some stories set during the war. And Whipple's final novel, Someone at a Distance (1953), is highly evocative of the postwar years, as well as recalling the characters' wartime experiences. Random Commentary (1966), published after Whipple's death, is subtitled Books and Journals Kept from 1925 Onwards and is compiled from her working notebooks. It contains fascinating glimpses of her earliest successes as an author, as well as the trials and concerns of day-to-day life, and the second half is composed of her impressions of wartime life, imbued with Whipple's charming personality. BARBARA WHITTON (1921-      ) (pseudonym of Hazel Chitty) Author of only one wartime novel, Green Hands (1943), a rather gung-ho portrayal of a group of girls in the Women's Land Army during World War II. The book was presumably a fair success, as it went through at least seven printings, but it was never reprinted and Whitton apparently published no more fiction. Not the strongest of wartime fiction, perhaps, but quite entertaining if you're interested in the Land Army (and if you can get your hands on a copy). Whitton is apparently still alive and living in a retirement home—one hopes she would enjoy being included here. MARJORIE WILENSKI (1889–1965) (née Harland) Wife of art critic and historian Reginald Wilenski; the British Library lists only one title for her—Table Two (1942)—but it’s an intriguing one, set during the Blitz, about a group of elderly women translators in the Ministry of Foreign Intelligence. Barbara Pym mentions reading it in her diaries of the time. ROMER WILSON (1891-1930) (pseudonym of Florence Roma Muir Wilson, married name O'Brien) Novelist, playwright, and biographer of Emily Brontë (1928), whose fiction focuses on artists and the impacts of war—in particular, If All These Young Men (1919), which the Orlando Project describes as "explor[ing] through male-female relationships the devastating intellectual, emotional, and practical effects of war." A later novel, Dragon's Blood (1926), focuses on postwar Germany and—again according to OP—"seems like a prophecy of the Nazi rise." Wilson's other titles include Martin Schüler (1918), The Death of Society (1921), The Grand Tour (1923), and Greenlow (1927). I have to admit that the recommendation of Wilson quoted on Neglected Books a few months ago doesn't make me all that excited about sampling her work, but perhaps others will have a different reaction. AMY [LUCY] WOODWARD (1883-1974) (née Temple) Children's author and (possibly) novelist; titles include The Treasure Cave (1931), The Two Adventurers (1934), Mrs. Bunch's Caravan (1940), The Serpents (1947), and The Haunted Headland (1953); somewhat intiguing for possible (?) wartime content is her 1943 title Life Is Sweet: The Intimate Diary of an Author's Wife (1943). VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882-1941) (née Stephen) A central figure in British literature, known for novels such as Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), Orlando (1928), and The Waves (1931), and for her voluminous diaries and letters. Many of her early works deal prominently with World War I, including Jacob's Room (1922) and Mrs. Dalloway (1925), which includes a traumatized ex-soldier among its cast. She wrote two very famous long essays, A Room of One’s Own (1929), about the difficulties for women of being creative artists, and Three Guineas (1938), a passionate condemnation of war and fascism. Woolf's final letters and diary entries are revealing about the war and its traumatic effect on her, which probably played a role in her suicide, and her musings about the war in "Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid" (1940) are also fascinating. Woolf's final novel, Between the Acts (1941), published posthumously, is set at a village pageant just before the outbreak of war. The approach of war remains muted on the surface of the novel, but is symbolically present throughout. SUSAN WOOLFITT (1907-1978) Memoirist and children's author, whose Escape to Adventure (1948), about youngsters having adventures on the canals of England, draws on her own experiences as a canal boat worker during World War II, recounted in her memoir Idle Women (1947). ESTHER TERRY WRIGHT (1913-1984) (married name Hunt) Author of three novels spread across more than 35 years, Wright is best known for Pilot's Wife's Tale (1942), a lightly fictionalized portrayal of her attempts to maintain a domestic life with her pilot husband during World War II, and his recovery from injuries sustained in the Battle of Britain. Wright's son Charles suggests that the book was published as a novel rather than a diary because censorship would not have allowed its details of locations and events to appear as nonfiction. Wright's other two novels are The Prophet Bird (1958), about a middle-class couple struggling in the postwar years, and A Vacant Chair (1979), a short eccentric tale involving two owners of a flower shop near Covent Garden in London. JOAN [OLIVIA] WYNDHAM (1921-2007) (married names Rowdon and Shivarg) Diarist whose World War II diaries, Love Lessons (1985) and Love Is Blue (1986), both reprinted by Virago, provide a rare view of sexually free, bohemian life during wartime (not to mention some of the only glimpses you'll ever find in this period—scattered here and there in the diaries—of gay and lesbian life in its natural habitat). Wyndham was only 17 when the war began, and she started her diary at the same time. Love Lessons focuses heavily on Wyndham's efforts to lose her virginity in the midst of the strains of war (she finally loses it the day after the first air-raid on London). It's certainly not for the strait-laced, but it's full of youthful energy and charm, and the ways in which her sexual awakening gets tied up with the dangers and the fragility of life in wartime are quite fascinating. Love Is Blue continues her diaries through the second half of the war, when Wyndham had become a WAAF. A third volume, Anything Goes (1992), continues her story into the post-war years, and Dawn Chorus (2004) is a memoir of her eccentric childhood (which certainly helps to explain her free love, live and let live attitudes which were so much before their time). The Mitford Society did a lovely post about Wyndham last year, complete with absolutely delicious photos I hadn't seen before.

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