Random Jottings

My Boudoir - aka my bedroom

If you look up the definition of boudoir you will see it was originally 'a woman's bedroom or small private room used for  sleeping, dressing, relaxing, and entertaining'. The kind of entertaining is not specified...

Its origin is from the 18th century French, literally a 'sulking place' from boudoir to 'pout, sulk'. This makes complete sense. I have often flounced off to my bedroom to sulk or, what was more likely, to seethe in impotent fury. Now that I am single this no longer happens and I can enjoy my bedroom in peace.

So why am I wittering on you ask? Well, a few weeks ago it was a cold, chilly day. It was getting dark earlier than usual because of the lowering clouds and I decided I was going to seek refuge in my bedroom. I made myself a cup of tea and took it through. I drew the curtains, switched on the light and the heater and robed myself in garment of total shapelessness, bright pink and covered in horses (don't ask).   It will never win awards for glamour and sylishness but if they were handing out gongs for total comfort then this would be top of the list. It also has a hood which is useful for keeping the back of my neck warm.

I took my place on the bed. Cushions piled up high behind me, rug over my feet. Books to hand, ditto laptop and all was gemutlich.  I stayed there all afternoon and it was total bliss. Did I doze off? Well, yes I did I was so comfy. Since then I have now got into a routine of doing all my chores, shopping whatever needs to be done in the morning and after lunch I retire to My Boudoir and there I stay.

It is not a glamorous room, I do not have a chaise longue or a bed festooned with drapes and posh bedding, but it is mine own and here I can snuggle and relax and do Exactly what I Like.

Bliss.

Every woman should have a boudoir.

Au reservoir.

 

 

Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy - Anne Boyd Rioux

I can’t remember when I first read Little Women.  It was just there. Part of my childhood. An old copy on a bookshelf and my mum didn’t know where it came from either.  It vanished as I grew up and, as an army child and on the move, disappeared along with my entire collection of Famous Five books and other assorted childhood favourites. When attending a book sale a few years ago I came across the same edition and pounced on it straight away and it is now back on my shelves where it belongs. (See the image on the left)

Louisa May Alcott was asked to write a book ‘for girls’. She wasn’t keen at first. After all, she was Jo March, though we were yet to know this and didn’t think she could write a story they would be interested in. She thought the first few chapters were ‘dull’.  Her publisher agreed. But she continued and wrote steadily for two months “descending into one of her vortexes”, now encouraged by her publisher whose niece had read the earlier chapters and loved it.  His belief in the book became so strong that he encouraged her to sign a contract that would give her royalties on each copy sold instead of a higher advance without royalties.   Bet he regretted doing that…

Well no need to go further. We all know what happened and it sold in thousands and thousands and she quickly had to write the next one and the next one.

The story of the four Little Women was based on Louisa and her sisters and she drew heavily on their life and adventures and it is this reality and naturalness that always makes this book so appealing.  We all have our favourite sister and mine, no prizes for guessing correctly, is Jo.  She is Louisa May Alcott herself who never wanted to get married and always maintained that there was nothing wrong with being a spinster if you led a happy and fulfilled life.  At the time of writing this was NOT what was expected of young women. The positive reaction to Jo March and her popularity with the readers must surely  have reflected the feelings of so many girls of the time.

Meg is the domesticated sister, the one who had no ambition other than to find a husband and to settle down with household and children.

Amy is the spoilt brat, yes she is artistic and dreams of being a famous artist, but in the end she, too, is happy to settle with a handsome, wealthy husband.

Beth. Well, what can one say about Beth? Some think she is too good to be true and she certainly teeters on the brink of nausea, but I have always found her appealing.  Her death never fails to reduce me to floods of tears. If anybody reading this is a fan of Friends who can forget Joey Tribiani so upset when he read Little Women and found out she dies? We laughed but at the same time felt glad that Joey had been so moved by it.

Over the years the book has waxed and waned in favour and one of the fascinating things about this simply wonderful book is the Feminist attitude which dislikes a book being called Little Women and then Good Wives.   Many of them feel that LM Alcott betrayed Jo by marrying her off to Professor Bhaer and yet, at the same time, many felt she should have married Laurie which seems contradictory.   When reading this section of the book I was slightly puzzled. Had none of these critics read Little Men or Jo’s Boys?  Or did they just stop at the end of Good Wives?

Jo’s marriage was the most satisfactory from a feminist point of view. She and Professor Bhaer ran a boy’s school in which they shared an equal partnership in teaching and nurturing. There was no Little Woman being told what to do by her husband – this was a mutual sharing of ideals.  (Louisa’s mother, Adelaide, longed to teach in a school set up by her husband  Bronson Alcott but he would not let her) and Louisa fulfilled that wish in Little Men.   Complaints about Jo March giving up her writing career for marriage also fall on stony ground as in Jo’s Boys she is a famous author hiding from fans who turn up on her doorstep.

“Things always went by contraries with Jo. Her first book, laboured over for years, and launched full of the high hopes and ambition dreams of youth, foundered on its voyage…..the hastily written story describing a few scenes and adventures in the lives of herself and her sisters was sent away with no though beyond the few dollars it might bring, sailed with a fair wind and a wise pilot into public favour and came home heavily laden with an unexpected cargo of gold and glory”

 “the admiring public took possession of her and all her affairs, past present and to come. Stranger demanded to look at her, questions advise, warn, congratulate and drive her out of her wits by well meant but very wearisome attentions”

So as you can see out of the three surviving sisters, Jo DOES have a fulfilling life and her youthful dreams are realised. And we must not forget the masculine aspect of frustrated dreams – Laurie wants to concentrate on his music but has a duty to his grandfather who wants him to take over the family business and has to give up his ambitions though in the later books, married to Amy, we find that he is a mentor to Jo’s pupils and helps them realise their musical abilities.

On the whole, men are absent or on the periphery of Little Women. John Brook, who Meg marries, appears towards the end of the book when he escorts Mrs March to the battlefield to look after her ill husband. Before that he is barely mentioned.

Laurie is on the outside looking in – wistful when he looks through the window and sees the family happy and together. Something lacking in his life.  Then he becomes part of it, an extra Little Woman if you like.

The most striking absentee of course is Mr March himself who only turns up in the final chapter of Little Women.  There are parallels here with Bronson Alcott who was hardly around throughout the family childhood. He was too busy off on his lecture tours abandoning his family with no thought as to how they were going to eat or live in his absence. He would not work to support them but had no difficulty in expecting others to do so. Louisa, like Jo, wrote stories to keep the family going.   Later on, when she was a famous author, Bronson benefited as The Father of LM Alcott, his lecture tours were packed and the money rolled in.   He did not turn it down.  I think he was an incredibly selfish egoist. He has a small part in Good Wives but he is easily forgotten.

I have no problem with that.

One chapter that really made my hackles rise was called Can Boys Read Little Women? The author found that the reaction was that Little Women was a ‘girl’s book’ so that boys could not possibly read it. Girls often read their brother’s books. One of my favourite books is a Victorian children’s book Coral Island by RM Ballantyne. I remember the librarian asking me if I was sure I wanted to read it as it was a ‘boy’s book’.   It was generally assumed that though girls might read boy’s books, it rarely happened the other way round.  The author cites President Roosevelt, Rudyard Kipling and Alexander Woollcott who had fond memories of reading Little Women as a child.  It seems that Alcott’s book was recognised as ‘one of the few girl’s books that all boys will read even if they do it on the sly or in a corner’. (My emphasis).

There are academic and serious aspects to Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy which I found totally absorbing and which made me sit and have a rethink about the Alcott books.  As a contrast to this Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy discusses the various productions on the television and also the films. As I have seen them all, I found this great fun.   Katherine Hepburn as Jo was a tad overwrought, I felt and emphasised the tomboyish aspect of Jo to the nth degree.  But she was wonderful and June Allyson in the later Technicolor film which, in places, was identical to the earlier version, was good in her own way. The actress was regarded as an All American fresh faced ideal woman but I rather liked her portrayal of Jo. Feisty but vulnerable I prefer her to Hepburn on balance.  Of course, we have the odd casting of Rossano Brazzi, a handsome Italian actor playing Professor Bhaer who, as we all know, is no oil painting and rather homespun, but he got away with it. Just.

I did not care for the Wynona Ryder version much. By then the Sisterhood had had an input and, yes I know, no need to shout me down, but it made me rather impatient. I felt they were making a point and in a rather laboured fashion, particularly in the portrayal of Marmee by Susan Sarandon. And Wynona was just wrong as Jo.

The BBC have done various productions but do not linger in my memory save for the fact that one dramatisation had a delightful piece of music over the opening and closing credits which I really loved. Years later I found it was Schubert’s Fifth symphony and every time I hear it I think of Little women – which is no bad thing.

Last Christmas the BBC showed a new American dramatization which I approached with trepidation but found I loved it.  It was true to the story and the characterisation was spot on. Emily Watson an excellent Marmee and the sisters played by unknown, to me at any rate, actors. I found the expanded relationship between the parents irritating but on the whole thought it was real and true to the book.

A few years ago I read  a biography of Louisa May Alcott. I reviewed it here and this wonderful book has given me the urge to revisit it.  It is worth reading for a more full and expanded life story.

I will never tire of Little Women. I have given a copy to my grandchildren and hope they will read it in due course and love it as I do but that is not guaranteed. We have to face up to the fact that modern children have so many distractions and read so differently that books we have loved may be tossed to one side.  I was pleased to see that the author cited Hermione in the Harry Potter books as being based on Jo, which JK Rowling admits to, and as Florence adores those books I might just mention it…

Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy is a must have for all lovers of Little Women. I found it immensely readable, academic and absorbing.  I have not touched on many aspects which I flagged up as I read and this post is just a taster of the joys awaiting all of you who are admirers of L M Alcott.  I have just re-read and edited before putting up on Random but feel it is a trifle rambling.

But a friend on Facebook when I said I would probably ramble said ‘Elaine please do’

So I have.

Murder by the Book - Clare Harman

This book opens with the ghastly murder of Lord William Russell on 6 May 1840 which caused a sensation and shockwaves of horror.  Queen Victoria when told of the event by her secretary of State Lord John Russell responded "this is really too horrid. It is almost an unparalleled thing for a person of Lord William's rank to be killed like that"

At the time of the murder the so called Newgate Novels were popular.  These novels were novels published in England from the late 1820s until the 1840s that were thought to glamorise the lives of the criminals they portrayed. Most drew their inspiration from the Newgate calendar, a biography of famous criminals at various times during the 18^th and 19^th centuries, but usually rearranged or embellished for melodramatic effect. The novels caused great controversy and notably drew criticism from Thackeray who satirised them in several of his novels and openly attacked the authors.  Oliver Twist by Dickens came under scrutiny because of its humaniisation of Fagin and his crew.

One of the most popular  and notorious was Jack Sheppard published in 1829. Written by W Harrison Ainsworth it was based on the life and exploits of the aforenamed, a thief and escape artist who ended up on the gallows in 1724.  Plays based on this story were put on, in various forms, in theatres all over London and then the provinces and performed to packed audiences.

“Jack Sheppard bags” were sold in the lobbies of these theatres, filled with burglary tools and one or two theatregoers had already confessed  that seeing Jack had given them they idea of pocket picking and thieving.  Product placement is hardly new it seems…..

The decline in popularity of these novels began in 1840  following the murder of Lord William Russell by his valet Benjamin Courvoisier who said he had been inspired to the act by a dramatization of Ainsworth’s story.

It is this gruesome murder and the surrounding publicity and mayhem that followed it which is the subject of Murder by the Book by Claire Harman.   Lord Russell was found dead in his bed by his maid. His throat was cut with such ferocity that his head was practically severed from his neck. It was soon clear that despite efforts to make it look as if burglars had committed the crime, it was an inside job and when Courvoisier was discovered to have some of the stolen goods on his person and then found hidden in his room, it seemed an open and shut case. He was arrested, tried and sentenced to death.

The murderer wrote several confessions in Newgate which were all printed in the newspapers, each one seeming to contradict the last.  As each one was given maximum publicity he continued to make sure he remained in the public eye right until the day of his execution.

The execution drew enormous crowds. Among them were Dickens and Thackeray. At first Dickens viewed those who attended with disdain, but in the end went himself.   His description of the execution in Barnaby Rudge draws heavily on his own experience.  Thackeray found the whole thing repulsive:

“It is curious that a murder is a great inspirer of jokes, there is a perpetual jingling antithesis between life and death, that is sure of its effect….. a great murmur of dreadful anticipation went round more awful and bizarre and indescribable than any sound I had ever heard before….women and children began to shriek horribly”

This is not a long book but length is not needed, its conciseness is its strength.  Though in the Aftermath the author raises queries and questions as to the veracity of Courvoisier’s multiple confessions and their inconsistencies there is no melodramatic exaggeration, just thoughtful writing.  The the influence these Newgate novels had at the time merely emphasises there is nothing new under the sun with the influence of TV and violent video games being cited in present day violent crimes.

I read Harman’s biography of Charlotte Bronte last year with some trepidation as I wondered if there was really anything new to be brought to light, but was totally engrossed in her writing and found it difficult to put down.  This title is the same, I sat up late last night and read it through. Probably not the most pleasant book to read until 1 am and I do not recommend you do so as I had slightly uncomfortable dreams when I eventually put the light out.

An excellent book and beautifully bound and presented.  It combined three of my main reading interests, Victorian literature, history and crime so I was a happy reader.

On a final note, it seems that during the trial a Norfolk surgeon, Robert Blake Overton, contacted the police with the suggestion that as he had been making some private study of handprints and reading that a single bloody handprint had been left on one of Lord Russell’s bedsheet, an investigation should be made “It is not generally known that every individual has a peculiar arrangement on the grain of the skin. I would strongly recommend the propriety of obtaining impressions from the fingers of the suspected individuals and a comparison made with the marks on the sheets and pillows”

His letter was ignored and lay unattended in Scotland Yard’s files until someone reading the old papers relating to this case, thought to investigate that there could be such a thing as fingerprint identification.   When they realised the possibilities,  it was acted upon.

“Had it been pursued in the 1840s it is believed that many of the century’s most notorious crimes, such as the murders of Jack the Ripper, could have been solved”

Now there is a thought to ponder on…………….

Do read. Excellent.

The British Library - Books and More

I am starting off this post by assuring you that I do NOT work for the British Library though you could very well think I do the number of times I post about it.  I freely admit that I find the building rather uninviting from the outside, all that brick and angles but I love it when I am actually inside with that huge rotating bookstack in the middle which I love looking at when I am having a coffee in the cafe. And of course it is slap bang next to St Pancras Station which is simply glorious.

I was unable to visit the book shop on this particular occasion back in August as it was being moved and updated and generally being given some more room and taking a gander at it in 2019 is on my To Do List. Probably just as well as I usually spend most of the time in there drooling over the contents.

I have no need to drool as the lovely peeps at the BL send me books. LOADS of them and all without me asking! Yes true. Several years ago I was contacted and told all about the Classic Crime series they were starting and would I be interested in receiving and reviewing same?  Well, they did not know me back then else the marketing department would not have asked such a silly question. They know now...

I have recently received a copy of the Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay. Who she? I hear you cry and no, I had never heard of her either but it seems she was a novelist of the Golden Age of British Crime Fiction and her three detective novels were published in the 1930s and are now very rare indeed.   So delighted to receive this in the post and it has all the ingredients dear to my heart in a detective novel.

We have a gathering at a country house for Christmas. It is the home of Sir Osmond Malbury, the family patriarch and the place is seething with relatives and acquaintances who would be happy to see the back of him. Nearly everyone will gain from his death and when he is discovered with a bullet in his head on Christmas day, well the game's afoot.

The story is told from the viewpoint of various of the characters which is a device that I am very fond of - think of Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie where Poirot solves a murder years later by interviewing all those present and we are then given the events from five different angles.  

It gets a bit confusing at times with protagonists zapping and out of doors and up and down stairs and it seems that instead of one Santa Klaus the discovery of a second costume reveals that there was a second Santa around which nobody knew about and makes the identity of who was who even more difficult.  

This title was originally reprinted by the British Library in 2013. It did not have one of those marvellous covers that now grace all these titles so I was really pleased to see that they have produced a new edition with a gorgeous cover. It is a hard back unlike the others which are all paperbacks.  The British Library told me that this edition is in conjunction with the Folio Society and when my copy arrived they had popped in a simply gorgeous Folio diary for 2019 which made the arrival even more special.

I cannot think of a more perfect present for crime lovers than this book.

The title of this post is the British Library - books and more and I am more than happy to mention below all the extra joys awaiting you there.  Another great Christmas present for all your bookish friends would be the gift on an annual membership which (for £80 only) allows you to unlimited library access, free entry to exciting exhibitions as well as:

•  Priority booking for events
• Free listings guides
• 20% off public restaurants, cafes and shops
• Entry to the daytime Members’ Room
• Entry to the Knowledge Centre Bar

The British Library is a non-profit organisation and by supporting them you help advance and develop as the world’s largest document delivery service, providing millions of items a year to customers all over the world.

Treasures from their collections include: Magna Carta, Beatles manuscripts, Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebook and the recording of Nelson Mandela’s Rivonia trial speech. The last time I was there I was lucky enough to be taken round the stacks which I wrote about here, which made me come over all emotional as I beheld the Shakespeare First Folio and the Gutenburg Bible.  A great privilege.

I feel an affinity with the Library. My mother, sister and I all worked for Camden libraries for years and all of us spent time in the building next to the library in the Eustion Road, I think it is now a hotel, which used to be the main library. My sister worked for the British Library for years in the old building in Store Street and was hoping to end up in this building but, as we know, it went wildly over budget and took years longer to build than was first anticipated so she never got there.   My historian daughter Helen, a Fellow of St John's in Cambridge, is a member and has spent hours doing research for her books here so it feels very much a family place for us.

I felt this even more last year when I took my two grandchildren to the History of Magic exhibition there which we all loved.  A wonderful place and, as this week I have learned that my county is planning on closing some of our local libraries, an event which fills me with fury, I think this post on how important libraries are is very timely.

And after re-reading what I have written I really feel that I must join myself....

 

Back Home

I got back earlier in the week but have been resting and recuperating after all the flights of stairs and looking after grandchildren. Lovely time but sooooo tired.  This is just a holding post to thank you for being so patient in between Random Jottings. I am determined to get back into a regular routine as soon as possible.

Yeh right

Au reservoir

Up in the Loft

Which is where I am at the moment.  I am in Kew in my room up in the loft on the top floor. I have joked with my daughter that if I keep coming to stay I may need a stair lift soon.   Actually, perhaps I am not joking....

My apologies for lack of posts recently but there seems to be lots to do at this time of year and time flies by. I have done all my Christmas shopping. Yes, I have and most of it online. Yes I do feel a pang of guilt, several in fact, on purchasing nearly all my stuff from a company that does not pay the taxes it should and also a pang because I am not supporting my High Street but I am sorry there is no contest. Most of the presents I have bought for my grandchildren are so over packaged and huge and no way could I stagger round the shops with them all. Throw in that the pavements are unevern and half the street is cobbled and that after an hour I can barely walk with aching knee and back and any residual guilt quicklly vanishes.

I have noticed when in my High Street recently that lots of new shops have opened and new retailers are coming into town. We also have a super Fenwicks which is flourishing so it is not all doom and gloom. And as well as the usual big names there are smalll shops as well which is very encouraging. I was very pleased to see a Hotel Chocolat...

I have given up posting on Strictly Come Dancing this year as I have found it all a bit tawdry with the shenanigans and goings on. It happens on a regular basis but I found the back street drunken snogging between one of the professional dancers and her partner a bit yuk to say the least. Then we have had one Sleb accused of bullying and when he was voted out called the judges imbeciles and then refused to appear with his partner on the weekly chat show. All left a nasty taste in the mouth. All enthusiasm for writing about it has vanished.

I have been rather busy knitting this week as well. My elder daughter in Australia is a film buff and, particularly, Star Wars.  There is nothing she does not know about it and even she says that in a woman of 40 this can appear sad but she feels no shame. Because she is so far away I usuallly send her a gift voucher or similar as a present but I always ike to send her a silly parcel fulll of silly things to open with her friends on the Day. I gather that Opening Kat’s Mums Parcel has become a fixture now and this year I am hoping it will make everyone laugh. The Parcel is going to have a Star Wars theme and to this end I have ready to go:

• A Star Wars Notebook
• A Star Wars Pen
• A Death Star full of peppermints
• Two chocloate lollipops with Darth Vader on one and Yoda on the other
• A Star Wars sleep mask
• A Hans Solo Lego set
• and the Piece de Resistance a knitted Darth Vadar

Now this knitted attempt has caused me endless problems as I found the pattern slightly weird and had to adjust it as I went along. I also had the wrong size needles so, again, had to adjust the tension. The result as you will see is not exactly terrifiying. Well, it is but not in the right way.

You know those photos you see sometimes on the internet about how speciality cakes should llook and then next to it photos of people’s awful attempts? Well, I feel the same about this Darth. It looks nothing like the picture on the pattern and I have to say that when it was finished and I looked at it I just sat there and laughed.

I cannot wait to hear the reaction.

Time to clean my teeth now and sleep.

May the Force be with you. 

They Shall not Grow Old documentary

Yesterday we remembered that it is 100 years since the end of World War 1. Ceremonies took place worldwide. I tuned into the Cenotaph at 10 am as I do each year to watch the laying of the wreaths and the march past. I have done this since we had our first tiny black and white television as a teenager.  I am afraid at that time I found it all a bit boring, the ignorance of youth, but as I grew older I realised what it was all about and have always made sure I could see it. This year the BBC gave a Red Button alternative - no commentary. As I have been driven to distraction by BBC interviewers and commentators talking over nearly everything in the past few years, it was with great relief that I turned on the red button.

And oh, it was wonderful. No talking heads, no nothing just the music and the peace and quiet to watch the solemn moments. It was, as always, moving and deeply sad. During the two minutes silence when the cameras zoom in on the faces of those watching there is never anybody looking anything but thoughtful and contemplative.

It had been pouring with rain in the morning and a nasty day but by the time the ceremony started the sun was shining as it always seems to do.

The highlight of the day for me was the showing of a film They Shall Not Grow Old on the BBC in the evening. I had read about it and was looking forward to sitting down and watching. Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, had been asked by the War Museum if he could make a film for 2018 utilising hundreds of hours of footage that they had in their archives.   He decided to see if it could be slowed down from, as he put it, the "Charlie Chaplin" type of film we normally see.

The results are simply stunning.  The film starts off with a small black and white screen in the centre of our larger screen and then without warning it expands, turns into colour and fills the whole screen. I literally gasped in wonder and then found myself in tears.  The film has been slowed down so we can see the faces of those involved, smiling at the camera, thumbs up and laughing and joking. Lip readers have analysed what was said and voices have been added. Sounds too.  There was one scene where the earth was being thrown into the air by the bombs and with the additional sound it was frightening to watch as this was not a movie, this was real.

The most moving part of it for me was the camaraderie shown towards the German prisoners. Voices over, and these were the voices of veterans recorded in the 1960s and 1970s spoke about how they realised they were just young lads like themselves, were scared to death and did not want to die. There was footage of them mucking about together and laughing and joking and I sat there with tears trickling down my face as these young boys just had fun in the midst of all the carnage.

And the saddest thing of all - one soldier had to shoot a comrade who was dying in agony and put him out of his misery.  It seems as he died he was crying out for his mum.

Words fail. I am choking up writing this.

If you can get to see this, then please do so. It is a masterpiece.

 

Random Christmas Books

I have had "Christmas" books piling up since September but I refuse point blank to write about them until at least October as I think the festive season starts far too early and I have no desire to encourage this. As most of you Dear Readers will know by now I am Scrooge like when it comes to Christmas and am likely to snarl Humbug at everyone. But even Ebenezer capitulated in the end and, now I have grandchildren, I cannot allow my snide tendencies to take over.  But though I may be sweetness and light to everyone I still refuse to garland my flat with decorations that will all have to be taken down in a week, nor do I get a tree, artificial or otherwise. I am away at Christmas so there is simply no point.  Last year I did spend time with Florence and Beatrice decorating an enormous tree at the Other Grandparents house and I admit I did enjoy it. Mark you, the adults were knocking it back at the time...drink that is not the tree.

So now my Misery Credentials have been established, here are the books that have been brought to me by the Christmas Elves. (iIcan't believe I just wrote that....)

Noel Streatfield's Christmas Stories published by those lovely peeps at Virago one of my favourite houses. These stories were originally written in the 1940-60s for annuals, magazines and the radio. They have never been collected before and when I read about this gorgeous book I simply had to have it. I picked up a wonderful edition of Ballet Shoes at a book fair last week, pristine condition with the original illustrations, and it reminded me again just how much I love this author. I would say give it to your children, but quite honestly, I would hang onto it yourself.

The Christmas Card Crime and other stories edited by Martin Edwards and published by the British Library. Who can resist buying these simply glorious books with their simply glorious covers?  I had new shelves built last year and built them so I could double stack as I knew the day would come when this was unavoidable, and I have shelves doublestacked with so many from the Classic Crime series. I am having to sort out books and be absolutely ruthless in order to keep space for so many goodies, of which this is one. There are stories inside by Baroness Orczy, Carter Dickson, Frances Durbridge to name but a few, and one by my Discover of the Year, E C R Lorac. I keep planning a post on this author and I simply must see if I can get it done soon.

Another British Library title - Spirits of the Season, Christmas Hauntings and Tales of the Weird. Just read this opening paragraph to the first story and see if it doesn't wet your appetite:

"The events which I am about to relate took place between nine and ten years ago. Sebastapol had fallen in the early Spring; the Peace of Paris had been concluded since March; our commercial relations with the Russian Empire were but recently renewed; and I, returning home after my first northward journey since the war, was well pleased with the prospect of spending the month of December under the hospitable and thoroughly English roof of my excellent friend Jonathan Jelf, Esquire of Dumbleton Manor, Clayborough, East Anglia"

Now don't you just know that something awful is going to happen. A Manor House in the country in the dead of winter. Cannot fail. Other stories have the most over the top titles: The Curse of the Catafalque, Christmas Eve on the Haunted Hulk, The Shadow and The Demon King.   Who can resist?

Back in December 2016 I reviewed Christmas Days by Jeanette Winterstone, link here, and I simply loved it and also read it in 2017. I shall be reading it again this year. Along with A Christmas Carol it has become one of my regular Christmas Reads. Do try it. It is Lovely.

And I have mentioned A Christmas Carol. I am a huge lover of Dickens and this book never fails to reduce me to tears whenever I read it. If I am ever going to leave my Scrooge like tendencies behind it will be down to Charles whose love of humanity is in so much that he writes, but positively radiates from this title. I posted about it several years ago and have several editions on my shelf. The link is here.

Since then OUP have sent me a gorgeous copy with the original illustrations and so I now own six different versions of this story - I gave the Quintin Blake illustrated copy to Florence who wanted to read it and loved it, but I still have plenty to choose from.  And I will end this post with a quote I used in the previous one:

Anyone who is not moved by Tiny Tim's  'God Bless us, every one' can, in the words of Scrooge 'be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart'.....

Gosh, I am beginning to feel festive....I must be getting old

Autumn at Kew

I am lucky that my family live ten minutes walk away from Kew Gardens and I can visit any time I want as they are Friends and have a yearly pass. I am up here looking after grandchildren but they are at school today and so I decided to take a look at the gardens again. I have visited in all the seasons and it is perennially beauitful, but autumn takes some beating. It is my favourite season and on a day llke today when the sky is blue, it is mild and the sun is shining and an autumn nip in the air. It is unbeatable. I had a wonderful couple of hours strolling and then resting with a coffee as my knee started to play up big time, but it was worth it as you can see from these photographs.

 

Eva Ibbotson revisited

Several years ago I read Manja by Anna Gmeyer which was published by Persephone Books.

"Written in London by a young Austrian playwright in exile, Manja opens, radically, with five conception scenes one night in 1920. Set in the turbulent Germany of the Weimar Republic, it goes on, equally dramatically, to describe the lives of the children and their families until 1933 when the Nazis came to power.".

Not an easy book for me and I struggled with it but when I finally reached the last page I was glad I had read it.  One of those books that you may never read again, but are there in your subconscious and, perhaps unknowingly, have left an impression that leads you on to reading other things.

One discovery that delighted me when reading the introduction to Manja, was finding that it was written by Eva Ibbotson, who has been one of my favourite writers for some twenty+ years with her books of enchantment and wit, set in Vienna, Russia and South America.  Another discovery was that she was Anne Gmeyer's daughter and the childhood she had described in her book The Morning Gift was based on that of she and her mother when they left Austria after the Anschluss.  It made the perfect link for me.

I am revisiting my past posts on Eva Ibbotson as the author Amanda Craig, amongst others, has been discussing her on Twitter and asking why she is not better known. I have been joining in the discussion and decided to see what I had written about her in the past.

Eva Ibbotson is well known for her children's books, Which Witch?, The Secret of Platform 13, The Island of the Aunts and The Star of Kazan to name a few, but for me Eva Ibbotson is the author of books imbued with her love of music, opera and ballet that I have read so many times and which I turn to on many occasions when no other book will do.  Though I love them all, the ones that appeal to me  most are those set in Vienna.

Oh, how I want to visit this city and I am so determined to do so.  Ever since I was a little girl this city has seemed to me to be a place of enchantment, the home of Johann Strauss, the Prater, the coffee houses, Sachertorte, the Schonbrunn, the home where Elizabeth of Austria reigned, she of the magical Winterhalter painting with flowers in her hair, the annual New Year's Concert and of the course, Viennese  opera and operetta.

I have a copy of  A Glove Shop in Vienna and other stories. I came across it in a second hand bookshop some years ago and grabbed it straight away. I have just gone on line to see if there is a new edition of it as there have been of many of Eva's titles but not this one it seems. The one pictured left seems to be the only one available at the moment,

I read the opening paragraphs of the first story on the first page and knew that I had another gem in front of me:

"It was mid-December and a night of snow.  All day the thick soft flakes had fallen quietly, covering the blank faced nymphs and satyrs on Vienna's innumerable fountains; blanketing the bronze rumps of the rearing horse on which dead warriors of the Habsurg Empire rode forever; giving the trees along the Ringstrasse a spare Siberian splendour.

The gas-lamps threw rings of brightness into the squares, the smart shops along the Karner Strasse looked like stage sets.  In the big apartment houses, those grand slightly crumbling Viennese houses which look like Renaissance palaces, but house simply doctors and lawyers and other self-respecting members of the bourgeoisie, the closed shutters were pierced by rays which the snow threw back in unaccustomed brightness.

One window in one such apartment house remained unshuttered so that a square of golden light went untrammelled into the dusk.  Inside Katrina fat and warm like all the best cooks in Vienna, produced an ever growing pile of gingerbread hearts and vanilla crescents; of almond rinds and chocolate gugelhuph".

To me this conjours up an warm, cosy, magical picture that never fails to beguile me. There is a word  'gemutlich' which Queen Victoria used when she and her beloved Albert were sitting around a fire with each other and surrounded by their children, happy, together and all well.  It is not possible to translate this word into an English equivalent which gives the same impression. Each of these stories, and in all her books, the heroine is small, enchanting and feisty. (I am aware that I am using the word enchanting far too often here but really it is the only one that will do...)  Ocassionally there are times when you feel that everything is about to topple over into whimsy and it is all a tad too sweet and picturesque, but the author seems to be aware of this danger and then a shaft of irony and wit pops up, just in time to avert this happening.

In another story in this collection, A Little Disagreement, Tante Wilhemina is on her death bed.  This happens about twice a year and is taken very seriously.  The family group around her with 'the weight and dignity of a Delacroix or a Titian'.  All the hushed relative are in the room, but where are the cats?  They must be there.   The housekeeper's son is sent to find them. Wotan and Parsifal present no problem

'huge neutered tom cats, they were perfectly prepared to finish their cream at the food of the bed.  Siegfried, however, was another matter.  Siegfried's operation had not been a success and he was absent on the tiles.....'

Wonderful.  Three cats, Wotan, Parsifal and Siegfried.  When I read this, only today, I hooted with laughter delighted that somebody else had had Wagnerian pets.  We used to have a Siegfried too, but he was a guinea pig........

Very difficult to explain why I love these books the way I do.  When I first read A Glove Shop in Vienna and Madensky Square I was commuting into town each day, exhausting and frustrating.  But it all went by the board when becoming engrossed in these two titles..  I was in Vienna drinking coffee with whipped cream and eating a slice of Sachertorte while a small cafe house orchestra played the Emperor Waltz.

Nearly all of her books are available now though I disagreed with the rebranding of some of them a few years ago with ghastly covers, but there are newer editions available. Many of her titles such as The Company of Swans and and the Countess Downstairs seem to be aimed at the young adult market but really they can be enjoyed by us grown ups as well...

Do try them.