E F Benson and Dodo's Daughter - Novels of 1913
Hang out with the frivolous young things of 1913 in a novel that's half Victorian epigram and half modernist stream of consciousness. Dodo's day is not yet over, as she's about to begin her third...
View ArticleSax Rohmer and The Mystery of Fu Manchu - Novels of 1913
Fiendish plots, deadly traps, poison delivered by centipede, psychotropic fungi and man-eating mushrooms. Sax Rohmer invents lots of very intricate ways to kill people, delivered by Fu Manchu with...
View ArticleElizabeth von Arnim and Enchanted April – Novels of 1922
In a wet and cold February, do you ever dream of escaping to a small Italian castle for sunshine and wisteria? Join four unhappy ladies who are longing for the right kind of love, and watch them unfold...
View ArticleJohn Buchan and Huntingtower - Novels of 1922
It's got hidden jewels, a princess who can run a mile, teenage military commanders, and the rejevenation of a retired grocer. Huntingtower is John Buchan's most delightful and exhilarating outdoor...
View ArticleRose Macaulay and Mystery at Geneva - Novels of 1922
Secrets and politics and multiple kidnappings at the League of Nations, and some pointed messages about early feminism. Rose Macaulay's Mystery at Geneva is a fine satirical novel in the mystery mode....
View ArticleUna L Silberrad and The Honest Man - Novels of 1922
It's the late 17th century, and Lady Otterby's spendthrift husband is betraying his friends and spending any money he can borrow as if honour was going out of fashion. Una L Silberrad's The Honest Man...
View ArticleE F Benson and Miss Mapp - Novels of 1922
Social tyranny in a small town, in E F Benson's novel of low cunning and outrageous scheming, Miss Mapp. For readers who play bridge for blood.
View ArticleP G Wodehouse and The Adventures of Sally - Novels of 1922
The Adventures of Sally is set in 1920s New York, London, the stage and the French Riviera, after she inherits a fortune. Also starring several besotted young men, a lousy boxer, two devious leading...
View Articlethe end of 1922, and something new coming up
Why I can't recommend Sapper's The Black Gang, and why I'm taking a short break.
View ArticleDornford Yates - Stuff That Really Happened 1
Dornford Yates's first two novels - Anthony Lyveden and Valerie French - were about the awful fate of the gentleman ex-officer who had to earn his living in domestic service. More melodrama comes from...
View ArticleNancy Mitford and Wigs on the Green - History Podcasters collage
The History Podcasters got together recently to record a collage edition on the theme of Terrible Leaders. You can hear all three collage programmes (each 30 minutes long) on www.historypodcasters.com....
View ArticleErnest Hemingway and Islands in the Stream
Go fishing with Ernest Hemingway's novel Islands in the Stream and catch big man's stuff, like bonito, and U-boats, and bodies. Marvel at prose so pared down that it's just core, all peel flung out to...
View Articlewhoops, too early ...
Due to mechanical failure, the sun in my eyes, and a distracting essay-marking deadline, I released the Hemingway post immediately, today, rather than on 30 May, when it was supposed to be. Now I don't...
View ArticleH G Wells and Mr Britling Sees It Through
Watch the First World War happen to a small village in Essex, and the household of Mr Britling, Everyman pundit and writer, with a son and friend who have just joined up, and very mixed feelings about...
View Articletalking about The Thirty-Nine Steps on BBC Radio Three
On Tuesday 24 June 2014 I'll be / will have been one of the interviewees on a BBC Radio Three programme called Free Thinking, discussing John Buchan's novel The Thirty-Nine Steps and its relationship...
View ArticleLindsey Davis and Falco
Visit Ancient Rome and the nastier outposts of the Roman Empire in the company of Marcus Didius Falco, private detective and lovable put-upon family man, in the excellent novels by Lindsey Davis. For a...
View ArticleNaomi Mitchison and The Blood of the Martyrs
We're in Ancient Rome, and we're waiting for the lions, with Naomi Mitchison's fine novel The Blood of the Martyrs. Not everyone in the cells is a Christian, and not everyone waiting to see the blood...
View ArticleGeoffrey Trease and The Crown of Violet
It's around 400 BC in Athens, and there's a plot to overthrow the city-state's democracy with a dictator. It's also the Spring Festival, and Alexis has entered a play against Aristophanes, which he and...
View ArticleJohn Buchan and Jacobite novels
For those with a fondness for Bonnie Prince Charlie, for lace jabots, snuff taken at the wrist, and the skirl of pipes on a wet foggy morning in the Highlands, these novels by John Buchan on the...
View ArticleSylvia Townsend Warner and The Corner That Held Them
Mud, fog, small beer, and not very much change in conversation over a lifetime spent in a 12th-century convent in eastern England. Sylvia Townsend Warner's pioneering historical novel The Corner That...
View Article