Prepare for high-stakes romantic melodrama, early 1920s style. This Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up is about Dornford Yates' first two novels. Anthony Lyveden was published in 1921 and its sequel, Valerie French, appeared in 1923: they were written after he had made his name with several collections of brilliant and witty short stories … Continue reading Dornford Yates’s Gothic melodramas, in Anthony Lyveden & Valerie French
Tag: Dornford Yates
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
Fast cars and the open road: Reading speed in Dornford Yates
Brief toot on my academic trumpet here: I had another article published, on how the intensely middlebrow and thriller / comedy novelist Dornford Yates used techniques and ideas from avant garde thinking when writing about fast cars, car chases, driving at speed, and the thrill of speed on the open road (clue: it's all from Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto). You … Continue reading Fast cars and the open road: Reading speed in Dornford Yates
Rampaging in the Pyrenees: Dornford Yates’s Adèle and Co.
Today’s letter in the Really Like This Book podcast scripts catch-up is Y, and today’s author’s name really begins with M, but his pen-name, by which he was made famous from the 1920s, begins with Y. Dornford Yates was the pseudonym of Cecil William Mercer, and he was famous for two kinds of fiction. The first … Continue reading Rampaging in the Pyrenees: Dornford Yates’s Adèle and Co.
My very own book: Novelists Against Social Change
Novelists Against Social Change: Conservative Popular Fiction, 1920-1960 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) This is my very own book, that I've been writing for what seems like forever: a long study of how John Buchan, Dornford Yates and Angela Thirkell wrote their conservatism into their best-selling fiction. It's now finally been published, with stunning cover art by Barry Rowe. … Continue reading My very own book: Novelists Against Social Change
Terror of the tyrannical wife, in Dornford Yates’s This Publican
For the full horror of an evil woman using class and sex warfare you might consider trying Dornford Yates’s magnificently toe-curling novel, This Publican, from 1938, which I podcasted about a few years ago. Its villain Rowena is the most loathsome woman character I’ve ever read, but it is faintly possible that she could be read differently … Continue reading Terror of the tyrannical wife, in Dornford Yates’s This Publican
Dornford Yates’s Gale Warning
This podcast was written for the miniseries 'Thrillers for Gentlemen'. I was looking at the kind of thriller or spy novel that was masculine without being brutal, written about men of a certain generation who understood the value of the gentleman’s club, and worked within its rules. Fascinatingly, women were huge fans of Dornford Yates … Continue reading Dornford Yates’s Gale Warning
John Buchan’s The Three Hostages
This podcast script was written for a miniseries on Thrillers for Gentlemen. I was looking at the thriller or spy novel that was masculine without being brutal; written about, and possibly also for, men of a certain generation who understood the ethos of the gentleman’s club, and worked within its rules. I’m not saying that way … Continue reading John Buchan’s The Three Hostages
Kate Macdonald 