Love’s Shadow – Ada Leverson

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Well, Bloomsbury have done it again. I’m starting to sound increasingly like a self-appointed marketing director (and I do feel a little responsible for Miss Hargreaves, which I’ll be writing about later in the week) but I can’t help it when the titles they’re reprinting are just so darn good. Today I’m talking about Love’s Shadow by Ada Leverson, first published in 1908.

Elaine at Random Jottings has been an online-friend for over five years, and I read her blog everyday – as she has said in one of her latest posts, we have the same opinions of almost every book, especially when it comes to the first half of the 20th century. And when I discovered that she’d recommended Love’s Shadow to Bloomsbury for their Bloomsbury Group reprint series, I knew I was in for a treat.

The novel is the first in a trilogy called The Little Ottleys (perhaps more will be forthcoming from Bloomsbury?) and the Ottleys in question are Edith and Bruce, married for a few years. Elaine, in her recent review, charmingly and accurately, describes Bruce as Mr. Pooter without the charm – I think his character can be summed up by this:

‘He often wrote letters beginning “Sir, I feel it my duty,” to people on subjects that were no earthly concern of his.’

Edith is obviously fond of him, and parries his ridiculous jibes and moans with a light-hearted wit which is both very amusing to read and an act of supernatural tolerance. Bruce really is the most ghastly imaginable husband, obsessed with being granted his due ‘reverence’ – from his son, his parents, his wife, and more or less everyone else. And like most preposterous characters, he is exceedingly vain. A fabulously witty chapter (Chapter 27, fact fans) chronicles his report of a first foray into amateur dramatics. In later chapters he devotes most of his time and energy to the two lines he has been given, but Chp.27 is so cleverly structured, a vignette of his vanity, self-delusion, and inability to tell a story, that I wish I could reproduce it in full.

This marriage lends the trilogy its name, but Love’s Shadow follows a flock of others, in an amusingly complex array of romantic entanglements, unrequited attachments, and refused proposals. (To set the tone, the union of Lady and Charles Cannon is explained peripherally thus: ‘Having become engaged to her through a slight misunderstanding in a country house, Sir Charles had not had the courage to explain away the mistake.’) Hyacinth Verney is the centre of romantic mishaps, the sort of character who can say, with equanimity; ‘I quite agree with you that it would be rather horrid to know exactly how electricity works’. Perhaps because she is attractive in the way that women seemed to be in 1908 – when introduced to a Mrs. Raymond, the latter ‘looked at her with such impulsive admiration that she dropped a piece of cake.’

How to describe the web? Hyacinth loves impulsive Cecil who loves the impressive Mrs. Raymond who falls for Cecil’s uncle. Sir Charles is Hyacinth’s ward, but also quite smitten by her – as is, we suspect through the disapproval, Bruce. And then there’s Hyacinth’s female companion Anne… Love’s Shadow is flung in so many directions that it’s more or less pitch black – except of course Love’s Shadow isn’t. You can tell that Ms. Leverson was a friend of Oscar Wilde – she is consistently witty, though without his love of epigrams, and the novel sparkles with good-humoured teasing, joie de vivre, and clever plotting. On the back of this edition, alongside Elaine’s recommendation, Barry Humphries perspicaciously compares Ada Leverson to Jane Austen and Saki.

Another Bloomsbury Group reprint, another must-read. If you’ve been holding out, just give in and buy the lot – it’s a library of witty, wise, brilliant books which will stand the test of time, because they already have stood the test of time. And once more, kudos to Penelope Beech and her cover illustrations – both cover and Ex Libris page include silhouette illustrations of representative scenes from the novel, and add to the charm of this exceptional series. Thank you Elaine, thank you Bloomsbury.

OUP – an expression of excitement

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I’ve been sorting through my shelves here in Somerset, and have managed to get rid of about 25 books – aren’t you proud of me? That’s about 2% of them. Ten or so were duplicates, but that’s still a fair few wrenched from my grasp, for various reasons… Our Vicar and Our Vicar’s Wife were doing the same thing with their shelves, and discarded quite a few duplicates (does anybody need four editions of Sense and Sensibility, one asks oneself?)

Anyway. This has suddenly become less impressive when you realise that I’ve just had a lovely box of books from Oxford University Press to review. Kirsty (blogger at Other Stories when she’s not working for OUP) sent me a catalogue and asked whether I’d like anything… so of course I sent it back, saying “No, thanks, nothing I like there…” Oh wait, no, that’s the exact opposite of what I did. I sent an enormous list, telling her to stop reading it when it got ridiculous (you don’t want to ask less than you can get, do you?) and she sent me most of them. Here they are…


I’ll be writing about them individually, bit by bit, but I thought I should bring them all to your attention now. I didn’t much like the old Oxford World’s Classics before, but since they’ve revamped the way they publish, I am absolutely in love with them. I bought most of the Virginia Woolf editions back here, and now I have all these beautiful books to read through as well:

New Grub Street – George Gissing
Casting The Runes – M.R. James
The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
The Mark on the Wall and other stories – Virginia Woolf
Much Ado About Nothing – William Shakespeare
Married Love – Marie Stopes
Selected Stories – Katherine Mansfield
The Yellow Wallpaper and other stories – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Years – Virginia Woolf
Cecilia – Fanny Burney
Camilla – Fanny Burney


Not pictured, because I put them in a different pile, are a new edition of the Alice books by Lewis Carroll, and A Very Short Introduction to Biography by Hermione Lee.

Obviously I have read some of these before, but I’d be keen to hear any recommendations you have, or which you’d like to hear about yourselves? I’m quite tempted to sink my teeth into a novel by Burney, since I loved Evelina and haven’t followed up on it yet…. more anon.

Life According To Literature

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I saw this quiz on Read-Warbler, though it’s been all over the blogosphere I believe. Looks fun and quite tricky, so I decided to give it a go… do check out her answers, and maybe follow the blog link trail back to its source…. Oh, and give it a go yourself, of course!

Using only books you have read this year (2009), answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title. It’s a lot harder than you think!

Describe yourself: Two People (A.A. Milne)

How do you feel: Cloud Nine (Caryl Churchill)

Describe where you currently live: Forever England (Alison Light)

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: The House at Pooh Corner (A.A. Milne)

Your favorite form of transportation: Parnassus on Wheels (Christopher Morley)

Your best friend is: The Entertainer (John Osborne)

You and your friends are: Dreamers (Knut Hamsun)

What’s the weather like: Cheerful Weather For The Wedding (Julia Strachey) – and I actually went to a wedding today!

You fear: A Shot in the Dark (Saki)

What is the best advice you have to give: Say Please (Virginia Graham) – I was so tempted to choose ‘Put Out More Flags (Evelyn Waugh)’

Thought for the day: It’s Hard To Be Hip Over Thirty (Judith Viorst) – I’m finding it quite tricky *under* thirty…

How I would like to die: Tea and Tranquilisers (Dianne Harpwood) – not really! But it is an amusing title match.

My soul’s present condition: Saved (Edward Bond)

Persephone Week: The End

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Apparently Persephone Week finished on Friday… but here at Stuck-in-a-Book we’re going to keep it going right until the end of the week. No Weekend Miscellany this weekend, then, but instead the final two Persephones will be proffered. (And maybe even a redux tomorrow). No, I didn’t manage to read six (though I’m quite pleased with four), but today you’re going to hear about Lettice Delmer by Susan Miles and, more excitingly, see the product of Our Vicar’s Wife’s interaction with Good Things in England by Florence White (which is also coming out in November as a Persephone Classic, with a really beautiful cover, below)


Right – Lettice Delmer, my first novel in verse, and the only one which Persephone have published. [Edit: Sorry, I forgot, Amours du Voyage by Arthur Hugh Clough is another one.] Not in rhyming verse, at least most of the time, but in blank verse. (If you need a brush up on what blank verse is, have a look here.) I bought this in a secondhand bookshop a while ago and, to be honest, I might not have bought it otherwise – like a lot of people, I suspect, the concept of a novel in verse was a little off-putting. Me more than most, since I’ve always struggled with reading poetry – probably because I read quite quickly, and poetry really needs to be read slowly, or even aloud.

But, nothing daunted, I gave Lettice Delmer (1958) a go for Persephone Reading Week. If I’m ever going to read it, thought I, now is the time. The Publisher’s Note writes that it is ‘a novel, i.e. narrative with plot, characterisation and psychological insight, where the verse form is readable, not too intrusive – but essential.’ Lettice Delmer is the privileged daughter of extremely charitable parents, who are always seeking to help others for the sake of Christ. She herself is uncertain at the welcome her parents give to Flora Tort and her young son Derrick. Flora was a patient at a Special Hospital (a euphemistic title) and her son is rather an unpredictable, savage creature – at first. The rest of this novel looks at the Delmer household; Lettice’s leaving of it, and her subsequent life of difficulties, weaknesses, loves, losses and spiritual journey. The secondary depiction of a Christian girl struggling to communicate with God, and seeking further depth in her relationship with Christ, was very honest, moving, and genuine.


The Persephone edition has a Plot Summary section at the end, giving summaries of each 10-20 pages – I occasionally flicked to it to clarify a point or two, but largely didn’t find I needed it. Its inclusion does speak volumes about an anticipated readerly response – you can’t imagine a plot summary at the end of a novel, can you? It is true that, now and then, I’d miss a pivotal event – perhaps because I read verse a little too fast, and the nature of its lay-out, with dialogue incorporated into stanzas alongside everything else, means that it’s trickier to make significant points stand out. But this didn’t happen very often, and in general, I didn’t find the verse format a problem.

I suppose that’s the central part of this review, in terms of whether or not I’ll convince others to give Lettice Delmer a try – was I able to read it? For the first thirty pages, I thought I wouldn’t be able to. It was tricky, I get stumbling, and realising I hadn’t taken in anything on the page – but then it clicked. Something suddenly worked – and, though every time I picked the novel up it would take a few lines before it clicked again, I was immersed more quickly each time.

But, of course, unobtrusive wouldn’t be good enough. If a verse format did nothing but disappear into the background, it would be pointless. Of course, Susan Miles uses it to much better effect. Difficult to pin down what the verse *does* achieve: it is more of an atmosphere than anything specific. A subtle beauty and poignancy is lent to the pages, an almost ethereal quality. The verse enables Miles to discuss hard-hitting topics such as death, suicide, abortion, and depression without this feeling at all like a gratuitously gritty novel – they are serious topics, dealt with seriously, but almost through a glass darkly.


The lines I really want to quote give away a big spoiler. So I’m going to post them in white, and you can decide whether or not to read them. Below that are two other quotations, little moments in Lettice Delmer which were illuminating examples of how the verse can be used to accurately reveal a character. The last shows just how well this book fits into the Persephone canon.

He lets the subtle Tempter’s guiding hand
direct his footsteps to the sea-dashed brink.
Not till the waters close above his head
does any plea for mercy stir in him.

* * *

“It’s want of confidence, I truly think,
that keeps him so resentful.
I’ve watched poor Flora hold a stick – quite low –
and try to make him jump.
It seemed as if he were afraid to raise
both feet at once in case when they came down
the earth would not be there!”

* * *

For Lettice insists scratchily
that aching to be in the war is a whim that merits contempt.
“You are doing far better serving at home humbly
than seeking false glory, it seems to me, Hulbert,
out on the battlefield,
for unmarked, unpraised, wholly unheroic home service
is, to my mind, self-satisfying or not self-satisfying,
much more admirable than a soldier’s blatant offering.”

To conclude, I thought I’d find Lettice Delmer impossible to read – but I was pleasantly surprised. Though it won’t become one of my favourite Persephones, the novel has a lyrical beauty for which it is worth acclimatising yourself to the unusual form. Do have a step outside your comfort zone, and give this novel a try.

Onto the second Persephone title of the post:


Our Vicar’s Wife had a flick through Good Things in England, (in its Persephone Originals edition) trying to decide what to make – the first thing she found was something involving a pig’s head, and thought not. Which is nice for me, because I’m vegetarian. Instead, she opted for gingerbread. ‘Eliza Acton’s Gingerbread’, no less, appropriately enough a recipe submitted from a Rectory. Here Mum is, holding her offering (doesn’t she look nice?)


And this is what it looked like when sliced up…. it’s even nicer than it looks. The yummiest gingerbread I’ve ever eaten, and a fitting end to Persephone Reading/Eating Week. Mmmm.

Persephone Week: Oh dear

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Oh dear. It was all going so well. I went out tonight, and I’m exhausted, so will have to stop at p.120 of Lettice Delmer by Susan Miles… I have failed in my Persephone Reading Week Self-Appointed Challenge! But I never really expected to read one a day, so I’m happy enough to postpone finishing Lettice Delmer until tomorrow, and then probably lingering a few days over a rather longer Persephone title. Or maybe even call it a week, and leave the other one for a couple of weeks’ time…

So! You’ll just have to wait and see what my response is to my first novel-in-verse. (No, I shan’t say – in my best German accent – vell, it could have been verse)


And tomorrow I am going home to Somerset for a week and a bit – which will be lovely, and although my plan was to not take any books, and rely on the ones I’ve got at home, it doesn’t seem to have quite worked that way when I packed…

Persephone Week 3: The Runaway

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I don’t know about you, but I’m really enjoying Persephone Reading Week. Do keep popping over to Paperback Reader and The B Files to catch up on what’s going on across the interweb, and I do hope you’ve felt encouraged to pick up your own Persephone book. Our Vicar’s Wife has promised to cook something from her copy of Good Things in England by Florence White, to celebrate the week, so hopefully I’ll be able to treat you to a picture of whatever it is, later in the week.


I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep up to one Persephone a day, since I was out at the theatre tonight (seeing Spike Milligan’s Hitler: My Part in His Downfall – for free, because I’m under 26 – hurrah!) But I was speedy, and the book was quick, so I can add Elizabeth Ann Hart’s The Runaway to my list for the week. A children’s novel originally published in 1872, and reprinted in 1936 with over sixty wood-cuts specially made by the sublime Gwen Raverat, The Runaway has become one of my very favourite Persephones.

Both text and illustrations are quite, quite wonderful. It’s impossible to imagine them separated, and I pity the children between 1872 and 1936 who had to make do without – but more do I pity myself and all other children who didn’t get this read aloud to them in their infancy. The protagonist is Clarice, an imaginative fifteen year old (who acts more like a modern day ten year old – whether that is a sign of the times, or simply Clarice alone, I’m not sure) who regrets that her father is not the army, and in the opening line, redolent of Emma, is described: ‘Clarice Clavering – young, ardent, and happy -‘. Longing for adventure, she finds it in the form of Olga, hidden amongst the thicket. The eponymous Runaway, she persuades Clarice to allow her to hide in the house. The plot is about whether or not Olga will be discovered; whether or not she is telling the truth about her origins; what the consequences of her running away will be for all.

But, for me, the plot is less significant than the lively characters. Clarice is a fairly typical good, obedient Victorian child, but without the slightly sickening edge that certain members of the March family have for me(…) Her spirited eagerness for adventure set her apart from her less attractive compatriots. And then there is Olga! What a delight – airy, impetuous, irrepressible, and vibrant, she reminded of nothing so much as Clarissa from Edith Olivier’s The Love Child. And anybody au fait with my 50 Books You Must Read will realise what a compliment that is.


Had the text been printed alone, this would be a lovely book – but Gwen Raverat’s wood-cuts take it to the next level. I didn’t really know what wood-cuts were before I started reading Persephone Books six years ago, but now I love them. Often featured in the early Persephone Quarterlies, an article by Pat Jaffe in PQ 4 speaks of the ‘bookish, talented, visual twentieth-century women [who] have taken such delight in the intimate, intricate craft they were at last allowed to learn.’ Each of Raverat’s must have taken so long, and they are enchanting. Not twee (though personally I never find a touch of twee goes amiss) but as spirited as Olga herself.

Any parents or grandparents out there, I do encourage you to get a copy of this for your child. If you catch them at the right age, I suspect The Runaway will become a favourite for years to come. And, like all the very best children’s books, it’s one which you’ll have to buy a copy of for yourself too.

Persephone Week 2: Minnie’s Room

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Still on track so far… today I read the second collection of Mollie Panter-Downes’ short stories published by Persephone Books – Minnie’s Room: The Peacetime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes. It’s infernally difficult to write about a collection of short stories, for so many themes are explored, so many characters introduced, that summaries would rival the collection itself for length. Instead you must try and find some sort of cohesion, in vision or style… which is equally difficult. I’ll set the tone for my thoughts on Minnie’s Room, though – Panter-Downes is very, very good.


I was equally blessed and cursed that the first short stories I read were by Katherine Mansfield. Starting with the best does mean that all subsequent short story perusals have felt slightly sub-standard. Mansfield makes the art look so effortless – and every other short story writer doesn’t quite make the grade. Panter-Downes is no different, but she comes perhaps closer than anyone else yet.

The stories in Minnie’s Room appeared in the New Yorker and publication ranges from 1947 to 1965. I haven’t read her wartime stories, published by Persephone in Good Evening, Mrs. Craven, so I can’t comment on whether peacetime changed Panter-Downes’ tone, but it is fairly consistent across these two decades. Like the best short story writers, she is concerned with the minutiae of life, examining ostensibly insignificant events and the interplay of human relationships. With these she is never heavy-handed; there is a much-needed lightness of touch in the revelations falling upon her characters. My favourite story of the collection is ‘What are the Wild Waves Saying?’ which is framed through a woman’s recollections of a childhood holiday, seeing a young married couple being nothing like she expected. The denouement, in other hands, wouldn’t have worked – but Panter-Downes’ pen is gentle enough to make it memorable rather than mawkish.

Another story, ‘The Willoughbys’, relates well to yesterday’s Persephone, Princes in the Land: here the situation is reversed, with upper-class girl falling in love with lower-class man (and not remotely like Lady Chatterley, of course). Only a writer of Panter-Downes’ subtlety could reveal how little both families appreciate the union, and the complicated feelings of indignant surprise and confliction which the four parents have on discussing the match.

Nicola Beauman has often held Mollie Panter-Downes up as an example of great writing, both in her Persephone volumes and in the classic post-war novel One Fine Day (which is published by Virago). It is easy to see why Panter-Downes is held in such esteem. I especially liked her use of observant details or revealing similes:

Norah, who had determined to keep the house going at any cost, visited employment agencies and explained the Sotherns’ need to unimpressed women presiding over dog-eared ledgers that had a disconcerting look of being theatrical props, full of false names.

(‘Minnie’s Room’)

London seemed wrapped from end to end in fog. The city was as mottled and dun-coloured as the board covers of some dirty old volume that opened here and there to disclose a thrilling illustration

(‘Intimations of Morality’)

In terms of themes, the publishers’ introduction notes that many of the stories have middle-class characters striving to live their pre-war life. Another strand I noticed was the idea of faces revealing truth: The woman murmured something, and her head rolled over on the pillow so that her eyes stared into mine, and deep in the sockets I saw a flicker of something resembling a smile, like the dim light of a house one had thought was empty. I was too awed to smile back.

(‘Intimations of Mortality’)

Time and time again faces and eyes suddenly disclose traits or truths previously hidden – and that is, perhaps, as apt a metaphor as any for what Panter-Downes does with the short story. In amongst narratives of ordinary people, often conducting ordinary lives, we suddenly find ourselves face-to-face with a character and, cleverly, subtly, Panter-Downes unveils a previously unsuspected angle to the story – and, often, to the world.

Persephone Week 1: Princes in the Land

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Right – Day One of the Persephone Week is finished, and so far I’m on track. I’ve read one book: Princes in the Land (1938) by Joanna Cannan. I think I’m supposed to link back to a central page, but I wasn’t sure which, so instead I’ll link back to two Persephone-related quizzes (with prizes!) on Claire’s and Verity’s respective blogs.

Since I’m hoping to read about six books this week, which requires a lot of reading, the reviews of them will be quite short. Hopefully enough for you to decide whether or not you want to investigate further the Persephone Books I’m reviewing…


I’ve been looking forward to reading Princes in the Land for quite a while, not least because it is often compared to one of my favourite Persephone Books, Elizabeth Cambridge’s Hostages to Fortune. Both are set in Oxfordshire; both concern the role of a mother, realising that her children and husband are not exactly what she expected. But where Cambridge’s heroine is pragmatic, wise, and selfless, Cannan’s is rather different. Having read Danielle’s recent review, and the blurb on the Persephone website, I wonder whether others have had different responses to the book… my views will become clear.

The novel opens with Patricia and Angela travelling with their mother, to live with the grandfather in their ancestral mansion. Patricia is travel-sick and miserable – no glamorous introduction to a ‘angular, freckled’ girl; a disappointment to their mother. Their mother ‘had been brought up to ring bells and now had no bells to ring’ (an example of Cannan’s concise, accurate summations of character) – as a poor relative, she must return to her father-in-law’s house, after the death of her husband. We speed through Patricia’s childhood here, and enter stage left a husband: Hugh. They meet in a train carriage, and have soon (after one or two incidents of note) married and set up house.

And the bulk of the novel follows this nuclear family of Patricia and Hugh, and their three children – August, Giles, and Nicola. For the most part, it chronicles Patricia’s illusions about them; the way her children form characters which are anathema to her. They don’t become murderers or drunks, but in her eyes a rejection of horses, an embracing of evangelical Christianity, a lower-middle-class villa, are all akin to her children beating orphans to death. It was here that Princes in the Land differed from Hostages to Fortune – where Catherine selflessly allows her children to follow their own paths, and sees them as acceptable, Patricia views any lifestyle other than her own ideal as dreadful. She has made sacrifices to her marriage, and initially seems an admirable character through and through – but by the end she appears increasingly selfish and unkind. This is mostly exemplified through her dissatisfaction with daughter-in-law Gwen. Her crimes are of the variety of saying ‘Pardon?’; using doilies; wanting to call her daughter Daphne. Patricia says at one point, without any evidence of irony, ‘Goodness knows I’m not snobbish.’ Does Cannan, somehow, agree with her? Can she be that blind? Patricia makes Nancy Mitford seem positively egalitarian. And, unlike Nancy Mitford, this horsey-huntin’-say-glass-not-mirror persona is presented without a shred of self-aware humour.

Which is odd, because Cannan writes quite wittily at times. For example, in describing Angela’s husband Victor – he is:

‘a pink young man with china-blue eyes and hair as golden as Angela’s, who could and did express all life was to him and all his reactions to it in the two simple sentences, “Hellish, eh?” and “Ripping, what?”‘
I suppose, in the end, I didn’t know where I stood with Princes in the Land. I don’t believe in judging a novel by the likeability of its characters, and Cannan can certainly write engagingly, sometimes amusingly, and in a domestic vein so familiar and welcome to Persephone fans. But I cannot sympathise with the character – her themes of a mother’s sacrifice, watching children grow, are ones I usually love, but the stance we seem encouraged to agree with is so prejudiced and, dare I add, proud. Though this only becomes concrete towards the end of the novel – before this, Cannan does show the family’s interlocking relationships from various, more generous angles… as I say, I’m not sure where I stand with the novel. It is certainly well written, and I’m glad I’ve read it, but… my overriding response is a desire to re-read Hostages to Fortune.

Stuck-in-a-Book’s Weekend Miscellany

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It’s a bit late this weekend, mostly because I spent so much time thinking about the review of The Other Elizabeth Taylor (thanks for kind comments on it!) that I didn’t want to get it swept away in the Friday lull. My stats counter tells me that things drop off on Friday, and quite significantly at the weekend, which suggests that quite a lot of you are reading blogs at work. Tsk! As if *I* would dream of doing such a thing. The very thought.

Ahem. So – a link, a blog post, a book.

1.) Verity’s recent review of Barbara Comyns’ wonderful Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead reminded me that it has one of my very favourite opening lines: ‘The ducks swam through the drawing-room window.’ If you don’t immediately want to read on, then check to see if you have a pulse. It didn’t make this week’s link, though – the 100 Best Opening Lines of Novels. This was decided by the editors of American Book Review, and thus has rather a leaning towards American titles. Don’t you find that these lists often choose opening lines from the best novels, rather than the best opening lines? A subtle but significant difference. I’m sure some of the best opening lines come from novels which are otherwise pretty poor. Anyway, pop over there to see who comes top (though any list which includes James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake at no.7 isn’t going to be in total agreement with me: ‘riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.’)

Fun for a browse – let me know what you think, and which you’d place at number one.

2.) The book. It’s Miss Hargreaves again, I’m afraid, since none others sprung to mind… I like to choose ones which I’ve had emails about, or received through the post, but might not review for a little while – and most of the ones I’ve had this week I’m *desperate* to read as quickly as possible. So instead I’m going to show you the part of Bloomsbury’s reprint of Miss Hargreaves which excites me the post:


3.) For my blog post of the week, I’m linking to Lisa at A Bloomsbury Life. I know I keep going back to the same blogs for this, and I will try to expand, but darn it – if Lisa must make her blog so appealing and wonderful, what am I supposed to do? Specifically, I’m linking to her post on Beverley Nichols, which quotes a hilarious section of his book Laughter on the Stairs, all about decorating his house and hearing that Woman’s Own want to look at it. How to get the house looking presentable when he has so little furniture… Rarely have I read a blog post which made me so desperate to read the author – Beverley Nichols is one of those writers I’ve seen a heckuva lot in secondhand bookshops, but never read. The Thatched Roof is the only one I have on my shelves. So, yes, wonderful excerpt – but the post is made even lovelier by Lisa’s characteristic style and great choice of accompanying photographs. Which doesn’t include the one I’ve picked for this post – so you’ll just have to go and read her post for more!

 

The Other Elizabeth Taylor

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Nicola Beauman, of Persephone Books, very kindly sent me a copy of her book The Other Elizabeth Taylor months and months ago, and I’ve been reading it gradually for most of that time. I finished it quite a while ago now, and have been meaning to write about it for a long time – but I wanted to ponder it, and give the book a proper response. As Persephone Reading Week kicks off on Monday, it seemed a good way to whet appetites. I shouldn’t think there will be much confusion on this site, but I’ll make clear from the start: we’re talking about Elizabeth Taylor the novelist (who wrote books I’ve chatted about such as Angel and Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont) rather than Elizabeth Taylor the actress, who has – as far as I’m aware – warranted no mention yet at Stuck-in-a-Book.
The Other Elizabeth Taylor is the first (and maybe last?) Persephone Life, a biography which Beauman wrote over the course of fifteen years. As one might expect of a biography, it runs from 3rd July 1912 when Betty Coles was born, to 19th November 1975 when Elizabeth Taylor died – but the focus of the biography is largely twofold. Her writing and her relationships. If, like me, you find an author’s writing life of paramount significance, there is plenty in this biography to satisfy. Though writing from 1940s – 1970s, there is a sense in which Elizabeth Taylor’s novels fit with the spirit of the 1920s and ’30s. To quote Jocelyn Brooke, cited in The Other Elizabeth Taylor, Taylor is

in the best sense old-fashioned; that is to say, she writes an elegant, witty prose, has a decent respect for the Queen’s English, and is not obsessed by crime, violence, madness or homosexuality.

As well as looking at the situations and inspirations for Elizabeth Taylor’s novels, the biography has a great deal of information about her short stories – both the ones published and those which weren’t. This does lead to quite a lot of little plot summaries, but I appreciate the effort of a biography to be comprehensive – and the practical process of writing is always the most fascinating part of an author’s biography, to me. These sections also furthered my interest in William Maxwell, the novelist Cornflower introduced me to, in his capacity of New Yorker editor. Their relationship is fascinating – Maxwell was capable of being both friend and professional. He recognised her talent, spoke of ‘the excitement, the bliss, of reading’ one of her stories, but continued to turn down some of her stories throughout the rest of her writing career. How strong their bond must have been to survive that – especially to a woman who took criticism so much to heart.

It is these sections of the biography which Beauman really brings to life: Elizabeth Taylor’s relationship with other authors. Though the biography often remarks with surprise that Taylor chose a middle-class, almost provincial life, instead of the hustle and bustle of London (whereas I can never understand why anybody would choose London over the countryside – the former seems so much more isolated than the latter!) she had several significant literary friendships. The most influential seems to have been with Elizabeth Bowen, who was not shy of offering praise: ‘This is a case of the genius which I do know you have’. The most interesting to me is Ivy Compton-Burnett, and I have already gone and bought Robert Liddell’s Elizabeth and Ivy based on Beauman’s mentions of it.

I said the biography had dual focuses; the big discovery in Beauman’s research, and the main reason the book was delayed until after Taylor’s husband’s death, was the relationship between Taylor and Ray Russell. Hundreds of his letters have emerged, and Beauman interviewed Russell. Though Taylor’s marriage seems more or less undisrupted by this ongoing relationship, which lost any mutual romance quite early on, it remains something to shake the image of Elizabeth Taylor as a model middle-class wife. Though perhaps the biographer’s biggest claim to breaking new territory, it was this section of the book which interested me least. It might alter her reputation and character – but I didn’t know anything about her extant reputation or character before I started reading the biography. It was enough to earn Beauman the antagonism of Taylor’s children, though. I would be unable to write this review without mentioning the striking footnote which every review has mentioned: ‘Elizabeth Taylor’s daughter has commented [concerning a section on David Blakeley]: “Most of what Nicola has written is untrue and the rest hurtful to many people”‘. The Acknowledgements add that they are ‘alas “very angry and distressed” about the book and have asked to be disassociated from it.’ I don’t know how to respond to either their fierce rejection of the book (one can only imagine how hurtful that has been to its author) nor the very honest publication of their opinion – the ethics of biography is a whole other topic, one which Elaine touches on interestingly in her review of The Other Elizabeth Taylor.

I think the key to appreciating The Other Elizabeth Taylor and Nicola Beauman’s writing is to recognise that she approaches biography predominantly as a reader, rather than a writer. That is not to say that her research is not impeccable – the heart Beauman brings to the project means the research is likely to be all the more scrupulous. But the book is not scholarly in the way that, say Hermione Lee’s biographies are scholarly – opinion is permitted, informalities allowed. Discussions of books will lead into a more personal point – indeed, the writing is almost always personal. In discussing a situation in Taylor’s life which is reflected in her novel Blaming, Beauman writes:

Whether she was as much to blame as she believed no one can say; we have all written letters saying ‘I am sorry’, failed our friends when they needed us. If she was to blame for her small lapse – then we are to blame, everyday, for similar failures.

It is an approach I like, it is one which fits in with the ethos of Persephone. In the pen of another biographer there might have been fewer evaluative comments; fewer emotive responses, but perhaps that is not the brand of biographer appropriate for Elizabeth Taylor. This is an appreciation as much as a biography. Like any reader, Beauman isn’t always sure how to esteem the writer. Alongside Elizabeth Bowen, Beauman uses the word ‘genius’, but elsewhere debates why Taylor is not a ‘great’ writer. The Other Elizabeth Taylor is, subtly, probably unintentionally, also an exploration of Nicola Beauman’s decades-long relationship with the writer through her books. Accepted on this level, Beauman has pushed the boundaries of biography, and written a book which should be recognised as – in its own way – experimental rather than simply informal. I do not believe Beauman set out to challenge the perimeters of biography – but I do think there is a case for suggesting that she has done so.

Perhaps one can see why Taylor’s children complained. I dare say any book about one’s own parents must cause offence somehow – especially about someone so ardently private as Elizabeth Taylor. The vitriol of Taylors Junior can’t really have poured oil on troubled waters, though, and they have done Beauman a huge disservice in their assessment of the biography. The Other Elizabeth Taylor is a warm, original, caring portrait of the middle-class literary highflier; the wealthy socialist; the domestic career woman; the determinedly private woman whose life is so very interesting, despite her contest protestations that it was not.