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Archives for January 2022

Angela Thirkell: August Folly, 1936

January 9, 2022 By allisonmthompson Leave a Comment

August Folly is a book that I enjoy when I read it, but I don’t read it as often as others as I dislike some of the characters or are embarrassed by them or for them. (Terrible way to begin an essay, I know!)  Even though it is still funny and light, in many ways I feel that this is Angela Thirkell’s cruelest book in part because of the stresses within the Tebben family, which might mirror stresses that Thirkell was feeling toward her two elder sons, who were growing increasingly estranged from her.

However, while this is not my favorite of Thirkell’s works, perhaps because I feel so sorry for Mrs. Tebben, it is one of the best-plotted ones.  We have the story of Richard Tebben’s poor degree at Oxford and his parents’ concern over what will become of him, Richard’s infatuation with the beautiful Mrs. Dean, the gentle Margaret Tebben’s hopeless future and her potential romance with Laurence Dean, the machinations of Mrs. Palmer and the play, Hippolytus, that she is putting on in the barn, and the crusty Oxford don Mr. Fanshawe’s growing interest in Helen Dean, who is a rather confused young woman who has an intense adoration of her brother Laurence and a consequent hatred of anyone who might come between the two of them. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Angela Thirkell Tagged With: August Folly, Barsetshire

Angela Thirkell: Wild Strawberries, 1934

January 2, 2022 By allisonmthompson Leave a Comment

Published in the same year as The Demon in the House, Wild Strawberries is a charming and extremely funny but rather conventional romance which, if it had been Angela Thirkell’s only novel, might (still undeservedly!) be called a “woman’s novel” of the type to be read while eating a box of chocolates, but it contains countless gems of pointed humor and the seeds of the social satire that is to come. Neither Thirkell nor her contemporary readers were aware that this was an early installment in what would become a saga—the county in which the action takes place is still not named. With the benefit of hindsight we can see how beautifully Thirkell works with her various threads: she will have no difficulty connecting Laura Morland from High Rising with the characters in this installment. Loosely speaking, Wild Strawberries is the story of twenty-three-year-old Mary Prescott, who spends the summer with her uncle’s wife’s family, the Leslies. She falls in love with David, the spoiled playboy youngest son, but ends up marrying John, the staid widower of seven years. Put like this, it sounds scarcely strong enough to hold up a short story, but it is more than enough!

When I think of this book I think of English country life with a golden haze over it—this is a romantic paean not to love itself but to the “lost” country house life of Angela’s youth. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Angela Thirkell Tagged With: Wild Strawberries

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Recent Posts

  • Angela Thirkell: August Folly, 1936
  • Angela Thirkell: Wild Strawberries, 1934
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  • London Lavender, Edward Verrall Lucas, and Cecil J. Sharp
  • Angela Thirkell: High Rising, 1933

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