This is part of an ongoing series where I write about a different author for each letter of the alphabet. You can see them all here.
If it’s a numbers game, then Gallico is an easy choice for G in this ongoing series – but I also think he’s a really interesting and varied author. Above is my colourful pile of Gallicos!
How many books do I have by Paul Gallico?
There are 18 books in the picture above, but there are a couple that are 2-in-1, so I’m going to call it 20. He was very prolific and there are an awful lot of his books I haven’t got, including some pretty famous ones – The Poseidon Adventure, for example. I don’t remember buying any Gallicos online, so I think these are all books I’ve stumbled across in bookshops – with the exception of a handful of reprints I got as review copies.
How many of these have I read?
Exactly half. I’ve read the four Mrs Harris books, Jennie, Love of Seven Dolls, Coronation, The Hand of Mary Constable, The Foolish Immortals, and The Small Miracle. I started The House That Wouldn’t Go Away once but wasn’t quite in the mood for it.
How did I start reading Paul Gallico?
I’m pretty sure it was with Flowers for Mrs Harris, also known as Mrs Harris Goes to Paris or even Mrs ‘arris Goes to Paris. It’s a whimsical story about a charwoman who saves for many years to go and buy an expensive designer dress in Paris. But there are dark undertones to the whimsy.
It was republished as part of the wonderful and sadly short-lived Bloomsbury Group reprints from Bloomsbury, in which Miss Hargreaves was famously included.
General impressions…
Gallico is a fascinating author to me, not least because all his novels seem to be twists on fairy tales – not traditional reinventions of them, but borrowing from them. Some lean very much to the whimsical, like Jennie, about a boy who turns into a cat. Others are so much darker, like the brilliant novella Love of Seven Dolls, where a young woman falls in love with a group of puppets but suffers abuse at the hands of the puppet master.
Mrs Harris is a wonderful character, deserving of her three sequels. That is perhaps Gallico at his most charming, with enough wry humour to save it being too fey. One has to be in the right mood for the sweetness of The Small Miracle, but it is so short that I found it perfectly hit the spot. The one of his I was most excited to read, based on the premise, was The Foolish Immortals – about a couple of people convincing a lady that they have found a cure to mortality. But it didn’t really live up to the premise, and became a bit meandering.
He is an ingenious and very varied author. I think Love of Seven Dolls is his masterpiece, but just make sure you’re in the right mood for the particular brand of Gallico you’re picking up at any particular time.
Gallico fits into the category of ‘always an enjoyable read, but I don’t go out of my way to find books by him’. Maybe it’s time for another go.
Yes, I think few of his would be all-time classics, but some of his best deserve that title.
I’ve only ever read Jennie by him, with my children. I had no idea he had such a range. Sounds like good fund and worth seeking out.
Yes, definitely a wide range – I would imagine someone reading Love of Seven Dolls, hoping for something like Jennie, would be in for a nasty shock.
I’ve never even heard of Love of Seven Dolls! Paul Gallico’s books are quite often too sad for me — I read his book about a circus (can’t remember the title) and it reeeeeally bummed me out. But I would like to read his masterpiece! I am going to see if I can get my hands on it.
(Jennie is my favorite, not exclusively because the cat has my same name.)
Hmm it sounds like this one might BE the circus one? NOt sure! If there’s another, I’ve not discovered it.
That’s an impressive collection, Simon! I have owned The Poseidon Adventure since my teens!
He is surprisingly easy to stumble across, which is nice!
My favorite is “The Silent Miaow: A Manual for Kittens, Strays, and Homeless Cats, translated from the feline by Paul Gallico.” It’s written from the point of view of a cat telling other cats how to take over a household. The photos by Suzanne Szasz are wonderful. The feline author is funny, cynical, and supremely self-assured.
“One of the most important things to learn for the proper and thorough subjugation of a household is attitudes. Attitudes, poses, expressions, play of body and features, all are lumped into the manner in which you remain continually and at all times alluring, enticing, seductive, fascinating, captivating, charming, winning, winsome, bewitching, enchanting, engaging, interesting, prepossessing, taking, pleasing, lovely, and sweet.”
It seems very off brand for me that I don’t have this one!
I was going to recommend this one as well. (But, other than that, you do have a fine collection indeed. Just lovely.)
Thanks so much, I didn’t know about this author. Just added the first Mrs ‘Arris, and Jennie to my Classics TBR
excellent!
I’ve read The Small Miracle and The Snow Goose, another animal fable. I’ll have to find Jennie!
I have Snow Goose unread, and should just read cos it would take about 20 minutes!
I’ve heard of him, but never read any of his books. Not sure they’d appeal beyond the Mrs. Harris books…
Interesting, why’s that?
I just read that Mrs Harris Goes to Paris is being made into a film starring Lesley Manville. Wasn’t there a film made with Angela Lansbury in the title role?