Random Jottings

Publishers - New Imprints

I think that most readers would be forgiven for thinking that publishers are doomed and books will soon no longer be printed, or wanted, as we all turn to E-books for our reading materials.   Now I have a Kindle and love it.  The amount of interesting free books one can track down from various sources is amazing and the knowledge that if you really really really want to find out what happens in the next book in a series you are reading and you know you can do it in thirty seconds, is irresistible.  However, I will never cease to love 'real' books, the smell and the feel of them and will always have a core library in my home, with other books coming in and out and visiting for a while.

It is therefore very heartening to hear of publishers starting new imprints. Most, if not all, leading publishing houses now produce all their books as an E-source as well as the hard/paperback for those who prefer their books in this way and this makes sense.   But it does not seem to have stopped new initiatives and new launches along the way and two publishers have recently come up with exciting news.  Today I was emailed by Headline about their new imprint, Tinder Press.

"Tinder Press is to be a distinct imprint publishing 10–12 titles a year, standing alongside Headline’s existing imprints. Tinder Press is created to build on recent Headline successes, for example Maggie O’Farrell’s Costa Novel Award winning THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE, Sarah Winman’s Galaxy National Book Award winning  WHEN GOD WAS A RABBIT, and  Andrea Levy’s Man Booker prize shortlisted THE LONG SONG.  The imprint will be steered by Mary-Anne Harrington, Fiction Publisher, and Leah Woodburn, Associate Publisher, who have a remit to publish extraordinary stories from original voices: books that inspire a  passionate response and will stand the test of time.

 Mary-Anne Harrington said: ‘Tinder Press is conceived as first and foremost a fiction imprint, supported by a dedicated in-house team in sales, publicity and marketing: the same team that made WHEN GOD WAS A RABBIT or Eowyn Ivey’s THE SNOW CHILD absolutely unmissable.  The time seemed right to grow our literary fiction publishing, giving a small number of titles additional space and the special attention they require to enable them to flourish.  We know how to create a real community around our books: it’s a wonderful marriage of new media and old-fashioned enthusiasm.’ We want Tinder Press books to be books to treasure – books you will want to keep – and our production values will reflect this.  We will produce beautiful hardbacks and innovative e-books for first format, followed by paperbacks with strong mass-market appeal.’

 The Tinder Press list will launch in spring 2013 and will include playwright Peggy Riley’s AMITY AND SORROW, an extraordinary debut about sisters in an end-of-the-world cult, run by their father; THE YONAHLOSSEE RIDING CAMP FOR GIRLS by Anton DiSclafani, a lush first novel of Southern decorum, family secrets and girls’ school rituals; Michel Rostain’s THE SON, a bestseller in his native France, and winner of the Prix Goncourt Debut Novel award; SNAPPER, Brian Kimberling’s heartfelt and humorous first novel about love and birdwatching in rural Indiana, which was awarded the Janklow and Nesbit Bath Spa Prize; and Maggie O’Farrell’s sixth novel, the story of four eventful days in the life of an Irish family in the heatwave of 1976"

I have had many books sent to me by Headline and some of my favourite and most interesting reads over the last few years have come from them.  Just recently I reviewed The Gods of Gotham here; one of the best debut crime novels I have ever read came from them, American Devil reviewed here, and I have a copy of the Snow Child on my shelves awaiting my attention. Every blogger I know has read this and raved about it and my apologies to Headline for being so slow in getting round to it.

I shall be keeping my eye out for the books mentioned above and wish them all the best for this new venture.

The other publisher I mentioned was Bloomsbury.   They are a lovely bunch of people, so friendly and interesting and sooooo good to all us bloggers. Not only do they appreciate our thoughts and reviews they also give mighty good teas for us all and I look forward to the next one (hint, hint...).    Their new imprint is Circus and here is what Alexandra Pringle, Editor in Chief, has to say about it all:

“Last year Bloomsbury celebrated its 25th birthday. From inception it was Bloomsbury’s aim to publish the finest of international fiction and these years on we have a list filled with distinguished writers from TC Boyle, Richard Ford, Donna Tartt, Edmund White and Tobias Wolff in the US, to Margaret Atwood and Anne Michaels in Canada, to William Boyd, Justin Cartwright, Esther Freud, Howard Jacobson and Barbara Trapido in the UK, as well as writers from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and many other countries. In order that Bloomsbury can continue to discover and grow exciting new voices, we have decided to launch a new imprint: Bloomsbury Circus.

The books in Bloomsbury Circus will be mostly fiction, unashamedly literary, always fresh and sometimes surprising. In its first year, we will publish nine titles and from there the list will grow to up to four each month.

In this digital age we are determined to make our books look more desirable and collectible than ever. Bloomsbury Circus books will be published as unusually-sized trade paperbacks with photographic covers, wide flaps and colour printing inside the cover. They will have all the beauty of a hardback with the ease-of-read – and price – of a trade paperback. And there is a lovely new logo – our goddess Diana dangling on a half-moon trapeze"

As well as introducing new books and new authors, these two imprints have something else in common: Tinder Press tell us "We will produce beautiful hardbacks and innovative e-books for first format, followed by paperbacks with strong mass-market appeal"

Bloomsbury says " In this digital age we are determined to make our books look more desirable and collectible than ever. They will have all the beauty of a hardback with the ease-of-read – and price – of a trade paperback"

The highlighting is mine and both Headline and Bloomsbury have realised that book lovers LOVE beautifully produced books which are a pleasure to hold and to handle and to keep.   OUP and Yale UP are other publishers who have sent me books which have high production values, the smooth paper, the clear font, a stylish look about them which, whether it is trivial or not, all adds to the reading experience.  This is where traditional publishing can score against the E-books and delighted that this has been realised.    (I have noticed when visiting the US and checking out their book stores that their paperbacks are so much better produced than ours and make the owning of them more desirable.  I have my thoughts on this and some comments and contrast to make, but that is a post for another day).

In the meantime I wish Headline and Bloomsbury all the luck in the world with their ventures.

Victorian Secrets

"Victorian Secrets is a small publishing house devoted to making the works of neglected Victorian writers available to the modern reader.

Although over 60,000 novels were published during the nineteenth century, only a very small number have remained in print. In some cases there’s a very good reason for that, but others have been undeservedly forgotten"

This is the introduction on the About page over on the website of this fascinating publishing house - do please check it out on http://www.victoriansecrets.co.uk/about-2/.  As a lover of Victorian literature I was simply delighted to discover all these quirky and interesting books being hunted out and republished.  I found out about it via a contact at OUP who is also on Facebook who has a friend who is the MD and so it goes - fascinating to stumble across places like this and when this happens I rejoice in the internet and its facility to produce such serendipitous discoveries.

I was very kindly sent two books which they have published in the last year.  The first is The Perfect Man by David Waller "The Muscular Life and Times of Eugen Sandow Victorian Strongman" and the cover is adorned with a photograph of this fine figure of a man wearing nothing but a strategically placed fig leaf. Bet that caused many a heart to flutter...    He was incredibly famous body builder and well known on the stages of the Victorian Music Hall and, naturally, took commercial advantage of his  fame.  It was possible to purchase a Sandow's spring-grip dumbell, made in different sizes for Gentleman, Ladies and Boys and Girls and could only be purchased from 'Athletic Outfitters' which conjures up the rather wonderful picture of shop assistants vaulting over the counter to serve their customers.

He is even mentioned in Ulysses where Leopold Bloom tried 'the indoor exercises prescribed in Eugen Sandow's Physical Strength and How to obtain it" and it seems that PG Wodehouse was also an adherent, contributing articles to Sandow's Physical Culture magazine while working for the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank in the City of London.    Mr Sandow seems to have been a superstar and returning to Britain in 1905 after an 18 month absence he received an amazing reception, being greeted by a large crowd while a bank played See the Conquering Hero Comes.

He died very suddenly, probably of an aneurysm, by which time his fame had started to decline.   HIs widow, Blanche organised a funeral very hastily and two days after he died there was a brief service and then was quietly buried.  She never granted interviews or spoke about him and when admirers of Sandow visited his grave they found it neglected and overgrown with weeds.   One wonders why his wife behaved in this way and there are several interesting theories put forward by the author.  

A superb book - quirky, interesting and totally fascinating.  As I love all things Victorian this is definitely staying in my library.

The second book I was lucky enough to read ws Dorothea's Daughter by Barbara Hardy.  It is a new collection of short stories based on novels by Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Dickens, George Eliot and Thomas Hardy and I fell upon it with shrieks of joy.  Just look at the titles:

• Twilight in Mansfield Parsonage
• Mrs Knightley's Invitation
• Adele Varens
• Lucy Snowe and Pauline Bretton: the Conversation of Women
• Edith Dombey and Son
• Harriet Beadle's Message
• Lucy Dean
• Dorothea's Daughter
• 'Liza-Lu Durbeyfield

I am not identifying any of the novels on which these are based as I  know that all my Random Readers are intelligent and well read and can guess straight away .....

These are all little gems and I am not going to say anything about them at all as I want you to buy and read for yourself.  I will say, however, that Dorothea's Daughter was my favourite.

I note that Victorian Secrets has a biography of Jerome K Jerome coming up - another to go on my Wish List.

Please do check out this marvellous publishers- these are the kind of ventures that should always, always succeed.

Random Returns

What a simply glorious week it has been - I have travelled the world and seen some wonderful sights but there is nothing, simply nothing, like the English countryside when the sun is shining, the sky is blue and the birds are singing.  Throw into that mix a terrific two days at the current Test Match and it has been a fantastic week.

Judith and I had a good time just gossipping and catching up. On Wednesday we went up to London as it was a Florence day and Judith has not seen her for a while.  Florence went all silly and a bit shy when Jude first came in, but she soon forgot to be bashful.  We went out for a walk in Victoria Park which is a really super park about ten minutes walk away with the Regent canal running through it.  The Council have recently given it a complete makeover, dredging and cleaning the lake which is now back, plus fountains and loads of swans and ducks, a Chinese Pavilion (why?) which Florence wanted to go inside. 'Can we go into the Pagoda please Grandma?' says she and I was mightily impressed with her knowledge of the word 'pagoda'.   Then we went on the swings and Florence visited the little wooden houses, just the right size for a child so climb inside and sit down, visited the cafe for drink and cake and then back home.  Judith and I were wiped out but Florence was full of beans so I put her in front of CBeebies on the TV for half an hour while we sat down and regrouped.   A lovely day.

Thursday we went to Aldburgh and the Maltings at Snape.   Aldburgh has the most wonderful fish and chip shop so we joined the queue and went to the beach to eat our lunch.   The seagulls kept a watching brief and waited for everyone who was sitting there scoffing to finish and chuck them some bits and pieces which caused the formation of a shrieking fighting Hitchcockian mass of feathers and wings as they all dived and grovelled for the largesse. 

Judith finished off her lunch with a banoffee ice cream from the ice cream parlour but I was too full and made do with a coffee and it was so good to be able to sit outside the cafe and just watch the world go by.

Then off to the Maltings at Snape.  I can never look at the water reeds and rushes without hearing the preludes from Peter Grimes in my mind - the sky seems to go on for ever here and all is flat as far as the eye can see.

We also managed to fit in a visit to my local garden centre which has the most incredible selection of plants, trees and flowers and Judith, who is a great gardener, planned out my border which is going in this weekend.  After I dropped her off at the station on Friday I came home and spent the rest of the day watching the Test Match.  This morning up early, went out and bought all the plants and, doing as instructed, chucked loads of Grow More on the earth tonight, raked it over and watered it. Tomorrow they all go in.

This afternoon I spent watching the Test match and as the evening wore on and I watched Strauss and Pietersen playing glorious strokes in front of a packed crowd in the evening sunshine, I thought Is there a More Wonderful sight?  I am sure there are, but this is one of my favourites.

I have had a lovely day and will be back with a book review or two in the next few days as they are piling up again.

Good to be back with you all.

Random Break

My sister arrives today and will be with me for the rest of the week. We intend to chat, gossip, she will come with me to London tomorrow to see Florence, and I am relying on her extensive garden knowledge to help me choose plants for a border I am planting in the communal gardens.

So I am taking a few days off and will be back at the end of the week.

Weekend Catch up

Have been feeling a bit rubbish this week so apologies for lack of posting.  I am falling behind with reviews so am doing a catch up to get me back on track.

First up Fatal Frost - James Henry.   The original author of the Frost books, R D Wingfield, died a year or so ago, the TV series has come to an end though it is endlessly repeated on one of the digital channels and yet here we have a new Frost story.   This continuing of a 'brand' name seems to be following in a new tradition of keeping a character before the public; Dick Francis's  horse books being the first which comes to mind, then Lord Peter Wimsey and James Bond.  As you know, I have mixed feelings about this and so was a bit dubious about the reincarnation of Jack Frost.  However, I ended up thoroughly enjoying it.   It is written in the style of the original author, the characters are all there, the irreverent and terminally disorganised and untidy Jack, the pompous Inspector Mullet and it rattles along nicely.

The story is set in May 1982 and if I have one criticism to make it is that the author rather hammers this home with frequent references to the Falklands War (how long ago this all seems now), Rothmans cigarettes, Bejam carrier bags (I remember Bejam well!) and the fact that a black policeman arriving in Denton is viewed with suspicion and alarm.  These constant reminders got slightly irritating after a while as if James Henry thought it was about time he bunged another one in.

But the plot is good - a spate of local burglaries, two or three murders, one which has a link with black magic and a dollop of humour along the way.

I shall be more than happy to read more of these Frost stories as I think the author (I gather James Henry is, in fact, two people) has got them just about right.

Ninepins - Rosy Thornton.   I very much enjoyed this author's last book which I reviewed here.   That one was set in France and could not be more different to her latest which is set in the Fens of Cambridgeshire.    Divorcee Laura lives along with her twelve year old daughter Beth in an old toll house known as Ninepins.   She rents out the pump house to garner some much needed extra income, usually to students, but this year she has been persuaded to take in seventeen year old Willow, who has spent most of her life in care as her mother has mental and drug issues and is in an institution.   Laure is rather doubtful of taking her but is reassured by Willow's social worker, Vince who is sure it will work out well.

Beth is having problems at school, becoming involved with trouble makers who are influencing her and Laura is distressed at the lack of communication between herself and her once sunny natured daughter. She is also worried about Willow who, it seems, was once guilty of arson and her influence on Beth.

This could not be more different in style and character than Tapestry of Love and yet I enjoyed it just as much. I have always found the Fens rather uncompromising and their vastness slightly off putting though I admit they have a beauty all of their own.

"The earth of the dykes and the garden and fields baked hard and began to split and crack. Instead of the water rising up to reclaim the land as it had in the autumn, now the artificial land seemed to shrink and recede, back towards the mire from which it had come"

There is a lurking feeling of tension hovering throughout the book, the feeling that any moment something could happen and, of course, it does.  But there is a twist at the end which is ratehr unexpected which shows Willow in a better light than hitherto.

I do like Rosy Thornton's writing, the narrative flows beautifully and each book seems to have a different slant so the reader does not know what to expect.  Keeps the reader on their toes.

Justice - Karen Robards.   Spent a day in bed this week (as I said was feeling a bit rubbish) and this book arrived in the morning and was perfect reading for the day.   Jessica Ford was the only witness to the First Lady of the United States being killed in suspicious circumstances and she has been in hiding ever since with a new name and identity.

Promising start but the book is very much of the pot boiler variety.   Despite being in hiding she ends up in court in a high profile rape case involving a Senator and a powerful family and ends up with her face plastered all over the papers.   Subsequently, an attempt is made to kill her and she is only saved at the last minute by the intervention of Mark Ryan, an agent who is guarding her and with whom she enjoyed a brief relationship.   She is also the victim of an attempted drowning from which she is also rescued by Mark and then finally is kidnapped and dumped in the boot of a car and taken off to be got rid of and lo and behold Mark turns up again.

The whole book is a farrago of nonsense, the plot has holes in it wide enough to drive a lorry through and we never learn why the First Lady died, why her husband resigned soon after and what is the great secret that only Jessica and Mark know that they have to keep quiet about?

But, as I said, perfect reading when you are in bed and not feeling up to reading anything with any intellect at all. 

Well, feel better now I have a few less on the TBR pile and back to watching the Test Match.

London and Los Angeles - two debut thrillers

Two debut thrillers have arrived at Schloss Random in the last week and I have enjoyed both of them very much, one set in London, the other in Los Angeles.

First one is Cross Bones Yard by Kate Rhodes. Our heroine is Alice Quentin, a psychologist who has problems of her own after suffering an abusive childhood when she and her brother suffered at the hands of their father and had to watch their mother being regularly beaten.   Hiding in a cupboard in a desperate bid to avoid him she is now a troubled adult who suffers from claustrophobia and is incapable of forming long lasting relationships.  So we have a troubled protagonist which seems to be a given for crime and detective thrillers and the writing and story has to be good to overcome a feeling of deja vu.

And it is.   Sharp narrative and good plotting.    Alice is a loner and one night out on her regular run she discovers a body on waste ground at Crossbones Yard, an area where prostitutes used to be buried.   The wounds are similar to those inflicted on the victims of Ray and Marie Benson (shades of the Wests here) who killed thirteen women before they were caught.   Alice is asked to interview Marie Benson to see if they can found out who is the copy cat killer.   The bodies begin to mount up and Alice has to go into hiding as threatening letters are sent to her, somebody tries to break into her apartment and it is clear her life is in danger.

In charge of the investigation is D I Alvarez, a widower, dark and brooding and grieving for his wife. "The bad tempered detective who had given me a lift home appeared in the doorway. ...he looked different by daylight. His black hair and pale skin made him look exotic, Middle Eastern maybe, starved of sunshine for much too long. There was still no indication that he knew how to smile".   He and Alice are attracted to each other and a relationship develops though both of them try to fight it and Alice is fresh out of breaking up with her previous boyfriend, Sean, a surgeon who is now exhibiting worrying signs of anger and resentment.

A tense, exciting ending when Alice finds herself abducted and a final twist I did not foresee at all.  I hope this is to be a series featuring this character as I found this an exciting pacy thriller by Kate Rhodes and look forward to the second.

Guilt by Association - Marcia Clark.  I gather that the author is a former LA Deputy District Attorney, as is her heroine Rachel Knight, and was the lead prosecutor in the OJ Simpson murder case so she certainly knows her onions and has produced a snappy, pacy thriller which zapped along, complete with witty one liners and sassy dialogue.

Rachel is another survivor with baggage to carry. In this case, it is the disappearance of her younger sister many years ago for which she blames herself.   As with Alice, she has difficulty in maintaining a long term relationship and to compensate buries herself in her work.

Her trusted and idealistic colleague, Jake, is found dead beside the body of a murdered teenage male prostitute and it appears as a murder/suicide.   Rachel does not believe this can possibly be the truth and sets about trying to prove the FBI wrong.   She is also dealing with a rape case of the daughter of a wealthy doctor who is applying pressure on Rachel's boss for a quick solution and whose re-election he is supporting.

Rachel has two good friends, Toni who works with her in her office and Bailey, a police detective and this trio provide the book with warmth and humour as the three support each other along the way. Bailey works for the Crime Unit in the LAPD and my first thought was that he must know Harry Bosch and then, no Elaine, wrong books...

Lots of twists and turns again and dealings with the seamy side of LA and, as with Alice in the previous book, Rachel finds herself in danger and being shot at and then kidnapped.  Also, as with Alice, there is a rather dashing and glamorous hero eager to get to know her better, in this case Lieutenant Graden Hales "six feet tall, on the lean side but tastefully muscled under his blue unfiorm, his dark blon hair just long enough to comb.  HIs eyes were a gold flecked hazel and he had wide, pronounced cheekbones, a strong nose and a generous mouth".  Mmmmm, nice.

As the story progresses it gradually becomes clear that the two cases are linked but how to prove it?

Thoroughly enjoyed this one as well.  Two good debut thrillers whose authors will go on my list of Those to Look Out For.

Sunday Ramblings

Have not been feeling too good the last two days, seem to have picked up a bit of a bug which has kept me indoors.   A shame as it has been a rather nice day today and i would have liked to have been out and about but no sense repining.   Due to go to London tomorrow for lunch and have had to send a despairing email to cancel hoping that its recipient will see it before jetting out of the USA.   Failing that, will leave a message at the restaurant - I do hate letting people down.

 

So just a short Ramble today as I am going back to bed in a minute as I was up most of the night feeling dire and with a thumping headache.   I am putting up a couple of photos I took in Aldburgh on Friday whence I went on another lunch, managed to make this one thank goodness and there will be more of that anon.   Don't you just love that blue house?

In the meantime, I will leave you alone and palely loitering...

Edward VIII: the plot to Topple a King (TV)

I made a decision a few weeks ago not to watch any more historical documentaries on TV.  You know my feelings about Fiona Bruce and her ubiquitous presence and since watching her, I have seen Amanda Vickery talking about Jane Austen and Colin Firth and behaving in a painfully girly way, Lucy Worsley (she of the hair slides and sensible shoes who was gambolling about on Blackpool Beach in a programme prior to this one) who I have christened the Irritating Elf, and it all got too much to bear. Then Channel 4, who are far worse at the Stating the Bleedin' Obvious school of documentary than BBC, produced one shown recently called Queen Victoria's Last Love, obviously hoping that by naming it thus salivating viewers eager to hear some scandal would watch.

Well, it was about the Munshi - one of QV's Indian servants who hugely influenced her in her later years.  Once Albert had gone the Queen lamented that there was nobody 'to call her Victoria any more'. She really must have been incredibly lonely and isolated and tended to be in thrall to strong men, John Brown who bossed her about and then the Munshi who stuck by her and declared his undying devotion - just what she needed.   I know a fair bit about the Munshi and was rather dubious about the slant this doco was obviously going to take but thought I would give it a whirl.  I actually mentioned on Facebook or somewhere on line that I was pretty sure the fact that the Munshi used to cook curries would be brought up pretty quickly and be illustrated with a soft focus pic of an unnamed Indian in a turban brewing up a vindaloo. I was hoping that this would prove to be a feeble joke but we lasted all of five minutes before this duly arrived so reached for the remote and off went the TV and I then took my vow of eschewing all further progs.

However, I had to give in pretty quick because this week there was a feature about the abdication and one of the prime movers in the whole thing, Cosmo Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury who sounds a prime bit of nastiness.   Unseen letters have been unearthed in which it is clear that the Archbish put pressure on Stanley Baldwin to get rid of the King and even hinted that he was mentally ill.  We were also treated to excerpts from the diaries of one of the Archbishop's chaplains, full of gossip and chat from one who had a ringside seat to all his master's Machiavellian dealings.  

Nothing wrong with all this and it was fascinating BUT here we go again with the illustrations just in case the pig ignorant and stupid viewer doesn't know what is going on:  shots of actor playing Cosmo wandering through a sinister darkened church, hands reaching out and lighting candles in the darkness, hints of secret meetings illustrated with a shot of a Victorian building at night with the lights burning indoors, shot after shot of the Obadiah Slope type chaplin watching and eavesdropping on all that was going on and slotting a piece of paper in his authentic 1930's typewriter and taking it all down.  The fact that all the diaries we saw were handwritten is beside the point.

A really interesting programme with lots of chat from a biographer of the Archbishop (Mem: must get hold of a copy of his book) who was stunned to find this, previously embargoed, correspondence and fascinating excerpts from the Chaplain's diaries which surely would make a wonderful book if somebody would edit and publish them but trivialised by the presentation.  I ended up watching a lot of it with my eyes closed, just listening to the discussion and the commentatary and by so doing really enjoyed it.   An hour long TV documentary would have made an excellent half hour radio programme....

It was clear that Edward VIII and the Archbishop loathed each other and also a hint that the Duke and Duchess of York, by inviting the Archbishop to stay with them after being rebuffed by the new King, had set up a rival court thus infuriating Edward.   Once Edward had gone, Cosmo Lang received a letter of thanks from the new Queen.   I have always found it odd that the Queen Mother has long been portrayed by biographers (with the exception of Penelope Mortimer) as a sweet smiling gentle lady when really one gets the impression that she was as tough as they come and was going to take no truck from anyone, least of all Edward and Mrs Simpson.

The slant of the documentary seemed to be that poor old Eddie didn't stand a chance against Cosmo and was hounded off the throne and rather begged for our sympathy.  Well, none forthcoming from this writer.  Edward was selfish, lazy and ignorant and thank goodness he abdicated when he did.  The Archbishop probably did us all a favour but one can hardly applaud the way he did it.

The Abdication seems to be one of those historical moments that continue to fascinate and as the years go by more and more documents come to light which reveal even more intriguing facets to the drama.  Wonder what else is lurking in some dark corner somewhere in the Royal Archives?

Just wish somebody somewhere would come up with a different way of producing such programmes and stop reducing the fascinating to the trivial.

Beautiful for Ever - Helen Rappaport

Last year Helen Rappaport's book Magnificent Obsession was my book of the year.  Before that I had read her book on Ekaterinburg and now I am reading something completely different.  The story of Madame Rachel, a con woman and a fraudster who set herself up as a cosmetician and perfumier and acquired a long client list of wealthy women in Victorian society who were eager to find the promise of eternal beauty.

'Madame Rachel' was a poor fish fryer, by name Sarah Levison, who lived in poverty and squalor in Victorian London.  By a combination of determination and slippery dealings she ended up with a shop on New Bond Street where she advertised such wares as Magnetic Rock Dew Water for Removing Wrinkles; Circassian Golden Hair wash; Royal Arabian Face Cream and Honey of Mount Hymettus Soap and a whole range of oils, gums, scents and perfumes and herbs.    Her main treatment on offer was 'The Royal Arabian Toilet of Beauty as Arranged by Madame Rachel for the Sultana of Turkey'.   This could cost anything from 100 to 1,000 guineas and this at a time when most working class families had to get by on about £1.12s a week and when housemaids were paid about £11 a year.

The first thing that struck me when reading this was how on earth could these stupid women believe these claims?   It beggars belief, but then it does not take a minute or two to remember the status of women in society at that time; their status depended on a husband, a home and remaining desirable for their men, those men who had all their money once they were married and became another piece of matrimonial property.   Many of Madame Rachel's clients had to visit her in secret knowing their husbands would violently disapprove; they were easy prey for Rachel who extended credit, took their money and then when they had spent it all and were unable to pay their debts, they gave her their jewellery. She was totally unscrupulous, safe in the knowledge that the wives would not dare reveal where the diamonds and pearls and sapphires had gone.  One of her clients, the Countess Dudley, even invented a robbery to cover their disappearance, the fact that her maid was blamed for their loss not bothering her one whit.

The question was asked why it was necessary that all these wonderful magical cosmetics came from Circassia, Arabia, Albania and Armenia. 'Why should there not be a Putney Bloom, a Turnham Green Preservative Balm or even a Camden Town preparation for the Chin?' 

There is nothing new under the sun.  There have been numerous surveys of modern creams, perfumes and lotions in recent years and it has been proved beyond question that there is precious little difference between a cheap pot of face cream and that at the top of the range.  What we, the consumers, pay for is the cost of the packaging, the hard sell and the Name.   A pot of Helena Rubinstein Night Repair seen on your dressing table will bring more kudos that Boots Face Cream, which is what you would see on mine.  The search for beauty and the belief that the more you spend, the better it will be for your face and skin, remains the same today as it did then and we are as gullible as Madame Rachel's clients.  

Madame Rachel and her family were a contentious lot - they were never out of courts, suing and being sued, brass faced and certain that they would get away with it.  In the end Rachel went too far, milking a gullible widow of her money and jewellery and was eventually put on trial after rthe intervention of the lady's family.  It became a cause celebre, the court packed every day and Rachel was put away for five years.   This was not the end of her, however, or her family and one has to admire her chutzpah and sheer bloody mindedness as she continued to extort and milk her clients without seeming to suffer a pang of conscience.

Beautiful for Ever is a simply fascinating story, I would say a Rattling Good Yarn except that it is true.  Just published by Vintage in paperback I urge you to go and buy, put aside an afternoon and just sit and enjoy.   Helen Rappaport's research is impeccable and there is an integrity about her writing which I find admirable, her style is impeccable and she takes the reader along on a journey with her, fascinated and interested until we reach the end.

Do read.  A Random Recommend.

Note: I don't grade reviews on Random but I do put a lot of them up on Amazon - will be doing so with this one and it will be Five Star, no arguing. Please note that the first link given above will lead you to the original hardback - I have done this so that you can read all the five star reviews given by its readers. As mentioned above, it is now out in paperback and the second link will take you to that page on Amazon.

Close encounters at the National Theatre - Redux

The picture of the divine Mr Petherbridge in my earlier post shows him as Lord Peter Wimsey and, as he said to me 'Thank you for reminding me when I was young and lovely'

 
Well, this picture shows him now and illustrates perfectly why I was so discombobulated at our Close Encounter.....thirty years on and still charismatic.