There are days when I want to do nothing but read women’s novels from the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s. This urge is preceded by a trip to a suburban library that has never discarded its novels by Elizabeth Goudge, Dodie Smith, or Margaret Kennedy. Oddly, the city library (biggest city in the state, guys) is not as well-equipped to meet these outmoded fiction cravings as the suburban libraries here.
These comfortable women’s books, in order to qualify for my day of reading, have to be well-written, peopled by likable, plucky heroines, set in beautiful villages or the country, and headed for happy endings.
And there is something sweet and brave about an old library book with a romantic design on the dust jacket that, by the way, never quite fits the book. Ignore the covers. Reading these comfortable authors leaves me with the buoyant feeling of having experienced the heroine’s life for a few hours. And Elizabeth Goudge’s books even make me feel religious sometimes. (Why am I not Church of England? Try Green Dolphin Street or The Scent of Water.)
When I read D. E. Stevenson’s The Baker’s Daughter yesterday, I became the heroine. I absolutely understood lovely, practical Sue Pringle, a baker’s daughter who is uncomfortable after her father’s second marriage and leaves home to become the housekeeper of an artist, Mr. Darnay. She learns about art by watching him paint and he learns to respect her intelligence and vision. Darnay teases her by calling her Miss Bun, a character in the card game, Happy Families.
Stevenson qualifies as one of my women’s book writers, though she is a notch down from my favorites in terms of style. The author of more than 40 light novels, she is perhaps best known nowadays for three of her humorous, charming books that are in print: Mrs. Tim of the Regiment (Bloomsbury), Miss Buncle’s Book (Peresephone), and Miss Buncle Married (Persephone). (I’m especially fond of the four Mrs. Tim books.)
All of her other novels are out-of-print, as far as I know.
And the few others I’ve read are deemed “romances ” by the publishers, though I think there is more to them than that. But I wish someone would recommend the best ones, because some are much better than others. She apparently had good writing days and bad writing days. The books fluctuate wildly in style.
The Baker’s Daughter is one of the best. Sue, 22, takes the first job she finds, at Tog’s Mill, though she’s not sure how it will work out. It’s hastily arranged at her grandfather’s wine and import shop, and her grandfather opposes her leaving to be a servant (it’s a step down). Then Mrs. Darnay and her French maid, who hate Tog’s Mill, leave the next day, leaving Sue to take care of Mr. Darnay . Stevenson’s humorous dialogue between Sue and Darnay, descriptions of the surrounding Scottish countryside, and development of the characters of different classes (lords and shop owners get together to “curl,” a game sliding stones across ice), make the novel likable and fast reading.
Here is an example of Stevenson’s plain, enjoyable style, a description of Sue’s days combined with her strongminded struggles with the butcher’s van driver.
“Sue settled down into a steady routine, and soon felt as if she had been at Tog’s Hill all her life. The mornings were occupied by the work of the house, but the afternoons were free, and she made a habit of walking by the river or on the moors. She was back at four for a cop of tea and then the butcher’s assistant called. Tog’s Mill was so far from the beaten track that the van coud not call there in the morning and indeed Farquharson made it obvious that he was calling there as a favor, and that the small orders she gave him scarcely paid for the petrol he used. Sue had known the butcher, Mr. Anderson, since she was a child, and his son was her contemporary at Beilford Academy, so she was ablet o take a strong line with Farquharson. She made him bring her groceries, and a copy of the daily paper.”
Of course truly I wouldn’t want to be a housekeeper. But I would like to live at Tog’s Mill.
And there is romance. Sue and Darnay become very attached to one another, and his wife wants to divorce him, but there are other difficulties.
So you’ll want to race along, to see what happens, because of course we know they’re made for each other.
I love the Barbara Buncle books, The Blue Sapphire, Five Windows, and many others.
Oh, thank you! I’ll look for The Blue Sapphire and Five Windows. These haven’t turned up at my library.
I would have to add, The Four Graces –
and Katherine Wentworth – followed by The Marriage of Katherine.
Perry
There are a lot of very satisfying ones and DES has been my favorite comfort read writer since the late 60s. The sequel to Miss Buncle Married is The Two Mrs. Abbots, but it is difficult to find. Try The Four Graces, The Blue Sapphire, Katherine Wentworth, Five Windows, or Amberwell.
I actually like her style for its simplicity more than the more wordy style of Goudge, though she is another writer I have been reading and rereading for more than 40 years. Perhaps 50 now…….
My tops favourites (besides, as we say at the DES Yahoogroup, the One I’m Reading Now) are Listening Valley (a sort-of sequel to Celia’s House), The Two Mrs Abbotts, The Four Graces, Sarah Morris Remembers,Smouldering Fire and The Blue Sapphire. Oh, and The Young Clementina.
I’ll post quickly before I think of more.
Oh, and I’ll add two links for DES readers:
My DES website, http://www.destevenson.org
The DES yahoogroup, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DEStevenson/
This is a friendly and chatty group of people who love DES and discuss her books, her characters, her settings, and her life.
I’m really pleased about all these suggestions. And I love your D. E. Stevenson website.
I wish somebody would reprint these.
Oh, by the way, Thickethouse, I do know what you mean about Elizabeth Goudge’s style. I love her books dearly, but the prose is dated. Once I get into it, I don’t think about it much, but she is different.
Just plucked one of these from a college booksale’s tables myself and felt quite pleased, as I’d never seen one of hers, apart from the Persephone edition of Miss Buncle (so wonderful). Nice to hear that her others are equally enjoyable!
I love DES and all of the above books are great recommendations. The House on The Cliff is another favourite of mine. No one seems to have mentioned that DES’s grand-daughter recently decided to go through some boxes of her grandmother’s old manuscripts and discovered several unpublished ones. With the advice and help of one of the DE Stevenson yahoo group members two full length novels have been published. One, titled The Fair Miss Fortune, is very much in the vein of the Miss Buncle books, being very light-hearted and Wodehousian in parts and the other, titled Emily Dennistoun, quite old fashioned and in a more laborious style, not unlike O Douglas’s work. I enjoyed reading it but I know others in our group were not so keen on it as on TFMT. Very newly published is a shorter novel with some short stories and a novella included in one volume. The main title being Portrait of Saskia, which I highly recommend. All three books are available from http://www.greyladiesbooks.co.uk and there you will find other books which may entice you!
Thank you for telling us about the greyladies books. I’m intrigued by the idea of reading anything Miss Buncleish, and perhaps will buy The Fair Miss Fortune.
It’s fascinating to see how many DESSIES there are out there.
Now if only a publisher would reissue some of the gems…
Just read Miss Bun last night – most enjoyable! I too am discovering the mild pleasures of DES – I believe this was my 5th. Many more to go, if I can track them down. I will be linking your review – thought you summed up the story & its appeal most succinctly.
She is such an entertaining writer. I should really try another DES . It’s hard to know which are the best, but, as you can see, she has a number of fans!
Katherine Wentworth and The Marriage of Katherine