I went to Draycott Books in Chipping Campden today – a bookshop I first visited last year. That was during Project 24, so I had to be very restrained. And it was just the sort of bookshop where I didn’t want to be restrained at all. Not a massive stock, but a large amount of interesting and unusual titles in their 20th-century hardback fiction section – which, naturally, is the first place I head in any bookshop.
And, yes, I came away with quite a pile.
Arundel by E.F. Benson
Climber by E.F. Benson
Always great to find more EFBs in the wild. I don’t remember anybody ever mentioning these books, which are both from the middle of his long and prolific writing career. Even at his worst, Benson is enjoyable – and at his best he is sublime, so I’ll have to wait and see where these fall on the Benson spectrum.
Colonel Blessington by Pamela Frankau
Frankau’s final novel, and apparently a thriller? Again, I don’t remember seeing anybody writing about this one – and, again, Frankau can be quite a variable author in my experience. But certainly happy to add to my shelf of unread Frankaus.
Best Stories of Theodora Benson
This is the book I reluctantly left behind last time, so I was pleased (though not entirely surprised) to find it was still waiting for me in Draycott Books. Of course, I love Which Way?, the title that British Library Women Writers reprinted, and have had mixed success with her other books. It will be interesting to discover what she is like as a short story writer.
Little Innocents by various
I bought this collection of childhood memories on the strength of E.M. Delafield being included in it – though she is far from the only name I recognised. Others include Vita Sackville-West, Ethel Smyth, Harold Nicolson… I couldn’t work out whether the contributions had been written specially for this book, but it does look rather like they were.
When My Girl Comes Home by V.S. Pritchett
I’ve only read Pritchett’s autobiography, but now have a couple of his novels to try. This was one of many titles from ‘Contemporary Fiction’ – a series I didn’t recognise, but which had a lot of intriguing and lesser-known mid-century books in it. Anybody know this imprint?
The Expensive Miss du Cane by Miss Macnaughtan
I don’t know anything about this book or author, but that’s the sort of title I certainly can’t resist. I flicked to the opening paragraph, and found myself even less able to resist:
As a country-house visitor Miss Du Cane was altogether desirable. She had her place, and that a high one, in the world of house-parties. And many people wondered at this, for not only was she very little known in London society, but there was about her an absence of that self-assertiveness which is generally supposed to militate against the acquirement of small privileges. There was nothing of the expert guest whose remarks may be said in their entire aptness and suitability to border upon professionalism. Nor was she even one of the useful guests who can be depended upon by tired hostesses to take a good deal of trouble off their hands, and to play games good-temperedly, and to become enthusiastic about taking some rural walk, or to laugh a great deal over small country-house jokes.
Indeed, even though it’s the book I know least about, I think The Expensive Miss du Cane might be the first book I read from this haul.
Where would you start?
