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
Category: 19thC
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
The Rudyard Kipling novel no-one ever remembers: The Naulahka
This week in the Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up, I plunge into Rudyard Kipling’s least read novel, The Naulahka. It was an absolute joy to read, because it was a rare treat: a novel by one of my favourite authors that I hadn’t already read, despite having been reading Kipling for about 40 years. I simply … Continue reading The Rudyard Kipling novel no-one ever remembers: The Naulahka
Submission and cross-dressing: Tennyson’s The Princess
We're in the 19th century for the Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up, in the Victorian era, when the British Poet Laureate, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, published an epic poem called The Princess, on the subject of what to do about bizarre ideas about women's education, independence, and silly things like that. The submission of Victorian women … Continue reading Submission and cross-dressing: Tennyson’s The Princess
Antony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda
Antony Hope's invention* of the cardboard kingdom in The Prisoner of Zenda is the subject of this week's Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up. Hope was a respectable Victorian London lawyer, but he had a secret passion for the romantic and dramatic, and wrote many novels. His most famous is The Prisoner of Zenda, from … Continue reading Antony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda
Mark Twain’s A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Launching into a new miniseries of podcast scripts from Why I Really Like This Book, the next few weeks will see a long and enjoyable wallow in stories about King Arthur. This will include early British history, fantasies about Merlin, and the utterly compelling theory that when the Romans pulled out of Britain, somehow the Saxon … Continue reading Mark Twain’s A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
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
