Fantasies of the undefeated South: Owen Wister’s Lady Baltimore

Lady Baltimore, by Owen Wister, is an extraordinary novel. It wasn’t written as a historical novel, but it certainly is one now: a 1905 depiction of the American South at the turn of the twentieth century, on how life would have been so much better if the South hadn’t lost the Civil War. I had to … Continue reading Fantasies of the undefeated South: Owen Wister’s Lady Baltimore →

Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm

This podcast scripts catch-up from the Really Like This Book miniseries on the mighty tradition of British humour in fiction is on Stella Gibbons’ fine satire of rural life and literary pretentiousness, Cold Comfort Farm (1932). It won a prestigious literary prize in 1933, the Prix Femina Vie Heureuse Anglais, which marked the novel out as being one of the … Continue reading Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm →

The scandal of drinking tea in John Galt’s Annals of the Parish

I adore John Galt's early 19th-century Scottish fiction. Back from my holidays, today’s letter in my A-Z of Really Like This Book podcasts is G, so I am delighted to go back 200 years, to return to the work of this Scottish novelist and friend of Lord Byron. His novel Annals of the Parish (1821) is a gentle and quietly funny … Continue reading The scandal of drinking tea in John Galt’s Annals of the Parish →

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell revisited

I haven’t seen the TV series yet (I’ve been away from home; the recordings are waiting), but precisely because I’ve been away from home, I’ve had time to reread the 800pp door-stop boot-thumper novel Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (2004) that made Neil Gaiman mutter about Susanna Clarke taking to writing like a novice musician sitting … Continue reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell revisited →

Magnificently diabolical sexual politics in Jane Austen’s Lady Susan

This post is from my only Jane Austen podcast, because her tremendous novel-in-letters Lady Susan contains one of the truly great Appalling Women in British Fiction. We all enjoy a villain, but there is something particularly enjoyable about a female villain, especially when she’s written for readers who expect women to be pure, perfect, and positive. … Continue reading Magnificently diabolical sexual politics in Jane Austen’s Lady Susan →