Good Evening, Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes
10 best books like Good Evening, Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes (Mollie Panter-Downes): Miss Buncle's Book, Wild Strawberries, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Henrietta's War: News from the Home Front 1939-1942, Nella Last's War: The Second World War Diaries of 'Housewife, 49', Henrietta Sees It Through: More News from the Home Front 1942-1945, Mrs. Miniver, William - An Englishman, The Home-Maker, Few Eggs and No Oranges: The Diaries of Vere Hodgson 1940-45
| Author | D.E. Stevenson |
| ISBN | 0708908349 |
Barbara Buncle is in a bind. Times are harsh, and Barbara's bank account has seen better days. Stumped for ideas, Barbara draws inspiration from fellow residents of her quaint English village, writing a revealing novel that features the townsfolk as characters. The smashing bestseller is published...
| Author | Angela Thirkell |
| ISBN | 1559213248 |
Action in Thirkells second Barsetshire novel centres around the extended family of the Leslies of Rushwater House. Lady Emily reigns behind a self-generated thicket of confusion and turmoil. There is no event so settled that Lady Emily cannot throw it into chaos at the last moment. Mr Leslie has been...
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Miss Pettigrew, an approaching-middle-age governess, was accustomed to a household of unruly English children. When her employment agency sends her to the wrong address, her life takes an unexpected turn. The alluring nightclub singer, Delysia LaFosse, becomes her new employer, and Miss Pettigrew...
| Author | Joyce Dennys |
| ISBN | 1408802813 |
Spirited Henrietta wishes she was the kind of doctor's wife who knew exactly how to deal with the daily upheavals of war. But then, everyone in her close-knit Devonshire village seems to find different ways to cope: there's the indomitable Lady B, who writes to Hitler every night to tell him precisely...
Nella Last's War: The Second World War Diaries of 'Housewife, 49'
In September 1939, housewife and mother Nella Last began a diary whose entries, in their regularity, length and quality, have created a record of the Second World War which is powerful, fascinating and unique.
When war broke out, Nella's younger son joined the army while the rest of the family...
Henrietta Sees It Through: More News from the Home Front 1942-1945
| Author | Joyce Dennys |
| ISBN | 1608195163 |
World War II is now in its third year and although nothing can dent the unwavering patriotism of Henrietta and her friends, everyone in the Devonshire village has their anxious moments. Henrietta takes up weeding and plays the triangle in the local orchestra to take her mind off things; the indomitable...
| Author | Jan Struther |
| ISBN | 0156631407 |
Ok finished the book. One final thought to complete the review. Mrs. Miniver did have something rather excellent to say on marriages and social life. She said that there was often one of a pair that you liked less than the other, or that one of them would always outshine the other (don't we all know couples...
| Author | Cicely Hamilton |
| ISBN | 0953478009 |
William was 'written in a rage in 1918; this extraordinary novel... is a passionate assertion of the futility of war' (the Spectator). Its author had been an actress and suffragette; after 1914 she worked at the Scottish Women's Hospital at Royaumont and organised Concerts at the Front. William - an...
| Author | Dorothy Canfield Fisher |
| ISBN | 0897330692 |
Although this novel first appeared in 1924, it deals in an amazingly contemporary manner with the problems of a family in which both husband and wife are oppressed and frustrated by the roles they are expected to play. Evangeline Knapp is the perfect, compulsive housekeeper, while her husband, Lester,...
| Author | Vere Hodgson |
| ISBN | 0953478084 |
Vere Hodgson worked for a Notting Hill Gate charity during the Second World War ; being sparky and unflappable, she was not going to let Hitler make a difference to her life, but the beginning of the Blitz did, which is why she began her published diaries on 25 June 1940: 'Last night at about 1 a.m. we had the...
| Author | Barbara Pym |
| ISBN | 1559212268 |
If Jane Cleveland and Prudence Bates seem an unlikely pair to be walking together at an Oxford reunion, neither of them are aware of it. They couldn't be more different: Jane is a rather incompetent vicar's wife, who always looks as if she is about to feed the chickens, while Prudence, a pristine hothouse...
| Author | Frances Towers |
| ISBN | 1903155347 |
When these captivating and at times bizarre stories were published posthumously in 1949, Angus Wilson wrote: 'It appears no exaggeration to say that Frances Towers's death in 1948 may have robbed us of a figure of more than purely contemporary significance. At first glance one might be disposed to...
The Fortnight in September
| Author | R.C. Sherriff |
| ISBN | 1903155576 |
The Fortnight in September embodies the kind of mundane normality the men in the dug-out longed for – domestic life at 22 Corunna Road in Dulwich, the train journey via Clapham Junction to the south coast, the two weeks living in lodgings and going to the beach every day. The family’s only regret is...
| Author | Dorothy Whipple |
| ISBN | 1903155460 |
I read this massive chunk of a book in two sittings.
Dorothy Whipple is an amazingly understated writer. I am so thankful to Persephone books for re-releasing her work to a wider audience. She writes with wit, candor and seemingly light years ahead of her time. I have only read 2 of her other books but...
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding
| Author | Julia Strachey |
| ISBN | 1903155274 |
This was absolute rubbish. Wicked too. The story was that although her wedding was but a few hours off, the bride couldn't make up her mind whether she should get married or run off with a previous lover, a dithering sort of person whose job took him on great adventures abroad. He had just turned up again...
