Here are short reviews of books I’ve liked recently, for your consideration. Georgette Heyer, Royal Escape (1938) This is not a Regency romance, and it’s possibly the weakest of her historical reconstructions, but I liked it enough to keep reading, simply because I don’t know the history of Charles II's escape from the Battle of … Continue reading These I have quite liked
I bought this imposing Harvill Press hardback on impulse while looking for something entirely different, and it held me enthralled for five evenings of reading. Before this, I didn't know much about the French Revolution, and I knew nothing about the years between the Terror and Napoleon's coronation. Madame de La Tour du Pin's memoirs … Continue reading The Memoirs of Madame de La Tour du Pin
I'd long been aware that the later 19th century in Britain had been a ferment of belief systems reinventing themselves, often within the Christian church. Some time ago I reviewed a marvellous book about utopian communities, Utopia Britannica, that pokes around in the wilder fringes of community living and pseudo-religious invention. Many novels of the … Continue reading The Labour Church
This is a memoir by the first female professor in the UK, Edith Morley, Professor of English Language at the University of Reading. It’s an essential read for anyone exploring the history of women’s higher education in Britain, and for those keen on reliving the struggles of women to make headway in a profession that … Continue reading Edith Morley’s Before and After. Reminiscences of a Working Life
This is a very early E F Benson novel, published long before his Edwardian and post-First World War triumphs would appear, but it shows signs that the experienced Bensonite can recognise as an indication of future sublimity. It’s a Victorian novelette, that in any other hands would never have made it out of the cheap … Continue reading E F Benson, The Money Market
I was in two minds about this book all the way through, and I’m still unclear how I feel about it. It’s certainly compelling, but it is three stories bundled into one narrative, and sold under the bookshelf-friendly title of yet another memoir from the Sackville-West / Nicolson dynasty. (The full title, A House Full … Continue reading A House Full of Daughters, by Juliet Nicolson
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
