Bertie Wodehouse’s socks and spats

Some years ago I wrote a scholarly chapter on how clothes were used as social indicators in the fiction of P G Wodehouse and Dornford Yates. This was for Middlebrow Wodehouse (ed. Ann Rea), and was a thoroughly enjoyable chapter to research. Costume history is one of my favourite branches of history, and I've been … Continue reading Bertie Wodehouse’s socks and spats →

A working girl in New York: Louisa M Alcott’s Good Wives

In this week's Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up, I re-read that bit in Louisa M Alcott's Good Wives (1869) where Jo March goes to work in New York. (I should warn any Alcott scholars looking in that I haven’t read any Alcott criticism for years.) Alcott was a great believer in work – on evangelical grounds, … Continue reading A working girl in New York: Louisa M Alcott’s Good Wives →

Working is good for you: Louisa May Alcott’s An Old-Fashioned Girl

Louisa May Alcott's most famous novel, Little Women, and its three sequels make her still a highly popular author, but until fairly recently these were her only novels that most people could name. Many of her Gothic thrillers and sensational potboilers have been resurrected by scholars, the most well-known of which is a rather depressing adult novel of … Continue reading Working is good for you: Louisa May Alcott’s An Old-Fashioned Girl →

Rachel Ferguson’s Celebrated Sequels

I posted a blog on Rachel Ferguson's 1934 book of parodies, Celebrated Sequels, on Vulpes Libris. Those pilloried and adored by the superb writer of The Brontes Went to Woolworths include E F Benson, Elizabeth Von Arnim, H G Wells, Sinclair Lewis, Mrs Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, Louisa M Alcott, Beverley Nichols and E … Continue reading Rachel Ferguson’s Celebrated Sequels →