More sour remarks about books I tried and found wanting. Hugh Walpole, Portrait of a Man with Red Hair This 1925 novel pops up regularly in lists about the supernatural canon as a gem of twentieth-century Gothic horror. It is certainly horrifying, but it’s a novella stretched out painfully beyond the natural length of its … Continue reading I Have Doubts
Category: Hugh Walpole
Rupert Hart-Davis, Hugh Walpole
This biography took forever to read. It's dense, in the leisured style of the 1950s (reissued unrevised in the 1980s), and it is very odd to read such a long study of a life that is pretty nearly forgotten now. None of Walpole's novels are in print now, as far as I can see, though … Continue reading Rupert Hart-Davis, Hugh Walpole
Rose Macaulay’s The Lee Shore
Today's novel from the Really Like This Book's podcast scripts catch-up is about art: buying it, faking it, selling it, advising on it, collecting it, and valuing your life by what you say about it. Rose Macaulay’s novel The Lee Shore really is completely forgotten, but is a fascinating read. It’s one of a clutch … Continue reading Rose Macaulay’s The Lee Shore
Hugh Walpole’s Fortitude
This Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up is about the 1913 novel called Fortitude by Hugh Walpole, and you need fortitude to finish it, to be brutally honest. It is not a snappy two-hour read. On the other hand, if what you’re after is something for a long wet weekend on your own during which … Continue reading Hugh Walpole’s Fortitude
Kate Macdonald 