The thing about children's literature is that it's often very firmly rooted in a specific time and culture. That makes it appealing to the target audience, of course, but it also means it is less likely to appeal to someone from a different context. I read 'Five Children and It' and other books by E. Nesbit when I was a child, but never even tried to get my daughter interested in them. Too dated to be relatable, not old enough to be historically interesting.
Kate Saunders wrote a sequel a few years ago, Five Children on the Western Front. As the title suggests, it's not really a children's book, though the Psammead is central to it.
We had a large set of Jalna novels in large print too.
...
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Back in around the 1970s there was a whole genre of what I think could be described as "plantation porn" books set in the pre Civil War South, on a slave plantation, which usually ended up with the spoilt rich heiress being given a "good seeing to" by a hunky slave.
Horrible to think that they even got into print.
Dear God, I’d forgotten about those: the Falconhurst series, apparently written by several authors.
Encountered one in the nurses’ tearoom in 1972 or thereabouts: nasty sadistic stuff, pandering to fantasies about the super potency of black men. 15 pages was enough and I was amused to note that no-one would admit to beinging the (well-thumbed) copy to work.
At least never saw such a book in the public library; more likely to be found in an airport bookstand.
I am sure we had some of those in paperback in my old public library days, erk. Every month we used to get a bulk order of romance/bodice rippers for the paperback spinners. I think we bought about 30 titles a month. If they weren't returned, no one was too sad!
I am thrilled to read there a few fans of Jennings aboard the ship, I don't think anyone I knew as a younger person had heard of him or Derbyshire! Am I right in thinking his Dad was a clergyman??
Derbyshire’s father was a clergyman. In the first book Mr Carter can’t put out the light till D. has read his Bible passage and said his prayers. And none of the boys, who are about to set the new boys challenges as a kind of hazing, remarks on D.’s devotions. Another fan here!
If books are under copyright, and none are available to buy new, does that mean they are only accessible if you can buy them 2nd hand, or if they are available from a library?
You might try the Internet Archive. They "lend" books on the computer, using a library-style arrangement. The loan is at an hour at a time, although you can keep renewing the loan. However, you can only "borrow" a book to the extent that they have a hard-print copy in their collection. So if they only own one copy of a work and somebody else is reading it online, nobody else can access it. They do this to try to comply with copyright laws and operate as a lending library.
It is in litigation and, last I heard, they were having trouble convincing a judge that they are right. Personally, I think that they are, the way they set it up, but they have so far run into judges whose legal analysis runs to "But it's on the internet! Evil!" The trouble is, if the judge is not careful and uses loose analysis, they could accidentally issue a copyright ruling that ends up making every library in violation of copyright law!
While it may end soon, as far as I know Internet Archive is still able to provide access to copyrighted works. I haven't tried recently, though.
I'm afraid my Gran used to read those highly distasteful novels set on slave plantations. I'm sure she used to get them from the library.
She used to read Harold Robbins and other 'spicy' authors and would embarrass us when we bobbed round with our school friends by reciting chunks from memory.
A bit like that scene in Father Ted where Mrs Doyle complains how disgusting contemporary Irish novels are what with 'all the language', and proceeds to give a litany of examples.
“Charles Edwin Jeremy Darbishire,” said the small edition of his father, in capital letters.
“You can keep the Charles Edwin Jeremy, you won’t be needing it,” said Venables. “And you’d better talk to Jennings as you’re both new.” And with the air of one who has already been over-generous to small new fry, he turned to the sublime heights of conversation with his equals.
Not children's books this time, and from the more recent past, but about thirty years ago there was a lot of interest in church circles in a series of novels by Susan Howatch set in a sort of C20 version of Trollope's Barset and featuring clergy , some with a touch of the sinister about them, who pushed the boundaries a bit in the field of spiritual direction. They were a good read and quite interesting but I have not heard anyone mention them for at least twenty years.
Has anyone else read any of them, and is anyone going to tell me they still do or have done recently?
As various Shipmates have said these are Susan Howatch's Starbridge novels, set in a lightly fictionalised version of Salisbury between 1937 and 1969. I love them and have re-read them many times, although I can see why they might not be everybody's cup of tea.
I remember reading one - I think it was Glittering Images, which may be the first of them - it was a set text for one of my seminary classes, I think one on reframing situations.
That makes sense! One of the main themes is how different reality can look from someone else's point of view. My favourites are the first and last in the series - "Glittering Images" and "Absolute Truths".
One author just popped out of my forgettory is Henry Cecil. I had not read any of his works, but remember one particular gentleman who borrowed them all (perhaps more than once). I remember shelving his books from public library days where he seemed to be prolific. A quick search tells me he had a career as a Barrister, and I assume his novels reflected that. Had anyone read him?
Back to Susan Howatch: I recently had another look at book four, “Scandalous Risks”, after Robert Harris wrote a novel about Asquith’s affair with Venetia Stanley - which forms the basis for Susan Howatch’s plot. Asquith is thinly disguised as Aysgarth and Venetia has the same name!
I rather liked book four actually - it was the only one told from a female point of view. Not that I have any objection to male points of view, but the other five novels had so many similar themes that we started speculating whether someone should write a spoof called “Repetitive Plots”.
“Charles Edwin Jeremy Darbishire,” said the small edition of his father, in capital letters.
“You can keep the Charles Edwin Jeremy, you won’t be needing it,” said Venables. “And you’d better talk to Jennings as you’re both new.” And with the air of one who has already been over-generous to small new fry, he turned to the sublime heights of conversation with his equals.
(I might indulge in some re-reading later)
I read the Jennings books - I had (much) older cousins and I think some of my books, and there were not so many, came from there. I liked them. Your quote also reminds me of being an 'assisted place' boy at a minor public school, where suddenly (when I entered age 11, whereas most of the others knew each other from the 'prep') everyone used surnames. Christian names were only used very occasionally when someone was trying to be really ingratiating, a weird fact I had to catch on to pretty quick. And then after a few years we all noticed that we were working in a strange kind of parody of something like a Jennings story, and we stopped using surnames - but an uneasy sense of the ingratiating use of Christian names remained. It was all pretty weird, looking back. It's amazing (as Alan Rickman said) I'm sane.
Yes - the Church Mice books are a treat. Likewise the Stanley Bagshawe books - very much in the same vein as to wit and illustration, and written in verse. Apparently they were adapted for Yorkshire TV but not having one (TV) our children never got to watch those. The intro to each book ran: 'In Huddersgate, famed for its tramlines, up north where it's boring and slow, Stanley Bagshawe lived with his Grandma, at Number 4, Prince Albert Row'.
I must check these out!
I do hope people are still reading the awesome Adrian Plass!
I liked him - 30 years ago I even went to see him (on a tour organised by local churches, probably). I don't think many people under 50 would have come across him now, but I could be wrong.
Does anyone read James Thurber these days? I loved his style as a young lad. 'Doc Marlowe' remains a favourite comfort read.
I read The Thirteen Clocks and The Wonderful O as a child, re-read it recently and found it was still very enjoyable. The lovely Ronald Searle illustrations were part of the charm.
On a different note, I picked up a Dennis Wheatley book from a secondhand stall last weekend. I enjoy occult fiction but interesting though the book is, I really couldn't recommend him as an author now. The casual racism, sexism and snobbery really do stand out in this day and age. You do have to make a mental effort with some older books to put aside the perspective of the modern day and read them as pieces of the time they were written in.
Not that I have any objection to male points of view, but the other five novels had so many similar themes that we started speculating whether someone should write a spoof called “Repetitive Plots”.
Routine hazard when writing multiple accounts of overlapping events, I suspect.
The events were consecutive. After you’ve read three novels where a clergyman loses his wife and then has a spiritual crisis while exploring other relationships (different clergyman each time; first Charles, then Jon, then Neville) you do start to wonder if the author could think of a different plot line.
Not heard of them, but that reminds me of great favourites of mine when growing up, that I never se now: the Mary Plain books by Gwynneth Rae. About a small bear from the bear pits of Berne, and her adventures, mainly with The Owl Man.
NB having visited the bear pits more than once back in the day, I was sorry/not sorry when visiting Berne about 12 years ago to discover that the bears are now in a zoo, and their pits are just an exhibition about them and their history.
Not heard of them, but that reminds me of great favourites of mine when growing up, that I never se now: the Mary Plain books by Gwynneth Rae. About a small bear from the bear pits of Berne, and her adventures, mainly with The Owl Man.
NB having visited the bear pits more than once back in the day, I was sorry/not sorry when visiting Berne about 12 years ago to discover that the bears are now in a zoo, and their pits are just an exhibition about them and their history.
When I was little, my mum went everywhere to find me Marigold in Godmother's House by Joyce Lankester Brisley, because she'd loved it as a child. I adored it!
She was better known for the Milly-Molly-Mandy books, some of which have been reprinted as paperbacks.
Not heard of them, but that reminds me of great favourites of mine when growing up, that I never se now: the Mary Plain books by Gwynneth Rae. About a small bear from the bear pits of Berne, and her adventures, mainly with The Owl Man.
Not heard of them, but that reminds me of great favourites of mine when growing up, that I never se now: the Mary Plain books by Gwynneth Rae. About a small bear from the bear pits of Berne, and her adventures, mainly with The Owl Man.
I love those books
I have a very battered 1950s anthology which has a Mary Plain story in. I've never come across them anywhere else. I suspect most of the authors in that anthology are long-forgotten.
@Eigon my mum got me a Milly-Molly-Mandy mug for Christmas! I haven't read the books for 40 years but recognised the illustration immediately.
I’d forgotten Mary Plain! And I have seen the bears at Berne (in 1987).
Still love Milly Molly Mandy. We always include a few non-biblical readings at our carol service and for a couple of years I read a shortened version of “Milly Molly Mandy goes carol singing” (though replaced it this year with a reading from Patricia St John’s “Treasures of the Snow” - does anyone remember her? Her books were popular as Sunday school prizes.)
I confess I didn't like Milly-Molly-Mandy - she never did anything wrong. I found her boring and insipid and a 'goody-goody.' And the chapter about her getting locked into her bedroom (not because she did anything wrong, the narrator assures us!) because the door gets stuck gave me a phobia of the same happening to me!
I did very much like Patricia St John's books though - Treasures of the Snow, The Tanglewood's Secret, The Mystery of Pheasant Cottage, Rainbow Garden. I remember them all quite vividly. Those kids all felt very real, with all the flaws and messiness of negative feelings and actions that real kids have. The whole moralistic conversion narrative irritated me, but I liked at least how very different it was for each character. When I look back at the books as an adult, some bits make me cringe - there's a kind of unconscious snobbery in the stories, such as how Terry's mum taking some apples for her sick son is seen as a serious sin that must be acknowledged as such before being forgiven. And perhaps a bit of Victorian-like sentimentality around the poor kids - Lucien, Terry - and their families. But the posh kids are well-depicted! 😄
I don't remember the Silver Curlew, but do remember seeing The Little Bookroom, but can't remember where.
I became familiar with Milly Molly Mandy when she was serialsed in a comic I used to get when I was about 7. The story was there in full, with only one picture. I later managed to get a new issue of the MMM stories in hardback for my daughter. These were illustrated by Clara Vulliamy, Shirley Hughes daughter. Daughter was never one for giving much feedback, I suspect she may have found the stories a bit dated, but the illustrations were gorgeous.
@Cheery Gardener I loved Henry Cecil - in fact #1 son, currently suffering a sporting injury, is amusing himself by working through my extensive detective fiction collection and is reading Brothers-in-Law at the moment.
Cool, @TheOrganist I'd never read any of them, but they still seemed popular with library patrons even though they weren't new publications. I'm glad to hear your son is enjoying them!
When I was browsing ebay the other day I saw a complete set of Catherine Cookson novels - 95 titles, good grief, though nothing compared to Barbara Cartland - I wonder if people still read her these days?
I’ve seen them in the local op shops( Sallies & Vinnie’s) so likely only recently chucked out. Used to see them on bookstands as recently as 10 years ago.
Does anyone remember Eleanor Farjeon? I recall reading “The Silver Curlew” but none of her other books.
I've now got a couple of crime novels by her brother, J. Jefferson Farjeon, who was highly rated by Dorothy Sayers.
Glad you mentioned J.J. Farjeon. I found a cache of his books in the library of a company hostel in Sweden in 1969 and have never seen any since. I have no idea how they got there. They weren't great literature, but fun to read in the style of the 30s thriller writers.
Does anyone remember Eleanor Farjeon? I recall reading “The Silver Curlew” but none of her other books.
Interesting in her own right, as a prolific author, and also as a close companion of Edward Thomas, with whom she was unhappily in love, and the Dymock poets. I have her 'A Nursery in the Nineties'. There is (or was) a children's fiction prize in her name, and she is cited as the author of 'Morning has Broken'.
I confess I didn't like Milly-Molly-Mandy - she never did anything wrong. I found her boring and insipid and a 'goody-goody.' And the chapter about her getting locked into her bedroom (not because she did anything wrong, the narrator assures us!) because the door gets stuck gave me a phobia of the same happening to me!
I did very much like Patricia St John's books though - Treasures of the Snow, The Tanglewood's Secret, The Mystery of Pheasant Cottage, Rainbow Garden. I remember them all quite vividly. Those kids all felt very real, with all the flaws and messiness of negative feelings and actions that real kids have. The whole moralistic conversion narrative irritated me, but I liked at least how very different it was for each character. When I look back at the books as an adult, some bits make me cringe - there's a kind of unconscious snobbery in the stories, such as how Terry's mum taking some apples for her sick son is seen as a serious sin that must be acknowledged as such before being forgiven. And perhaps a bit of Victorian-like sentimentality around the poor kids - Lucien, Terry - and their families. But the posh kids are well-depicted! 😄
These sound awesome. I am a sucker for moralistic conversion narratives. Interestingly when I searched just now on Google Books there were lots of German language e-book editions but nothing in English!
What a lovely reminder. I loved Treasures of the Snow, despite being an unchurched child. I presume my copy had belonged to my eldest sister who was brought up in the Baptist church and maintained her faith throughout her life. (One of the idiosyncrasies of my large family is that the eldest children attended church, girls’ brigade, etc, but the younger children didn’t as we moved to a new estate when I was 4 and my parents stopped attending.)
We have a copy of 'Treasures of the Snow' I inherited from a lovely Brethren lady more than 50 years ago. I read it to my daughter at bedtime perhaps 40 years ago. It's not a book I have got rid of! Perhaps a great granddaughter or great grandson (please, Lord) will (when the time comes) treasure it.
I remember that Charlotte MacLeod was popular in the 1980s & 1990s. I read the first few of her Peter Shandy mysteries and her Sarah Kelling mysteries, but I gave up on both series after the first three or four novels.
NB having visited the bear pits more than once back in the day, I was sorry/not sorry when visiting Berne about 12 years ago to discover that the bears are now in a zoo, and their pits are just an exhibition about them and their history.
Does anyone remember Eleanor Farjeon? I recall reading “The Silver Curlew” but none of her other books.
I've now got a couple of crime novels by her brother, J. Jefferson Farjeon, who was highly rated by Dorothy Sayers.
Glad you mentioned J.J. Farjeon. I found a cache of his books in the library of a company hostel in Sweden in 1969 and have never seen any since. I have no idea how they got there. They weren't great literature, but fun to read in the style of the 30s thriller writers.
Just finished reading his "Mystery in White" which has been republished. As it was a present from my wife, I read it through to the ended, but found it somewhat tedious.
Comments
Kate Saunders wrote a sequel a few years ago, Five Children on the Western Front. As the title suggests, it's not really a children's book, though the Psammead is central to it.
Dear God, I’d forgotten about those: the Falconhurst series, apparently written by several authors.
Encountered one in the nurses’ tearoom in 1972 or thereabouts: nasty sadistic stuff, pandering to fantasies about the super potency of black men. 15 pages was enough and I was amused to note that no-one would admit to beinging the (well-thumbed) copy to work.
At least never saw such a book in the public library; more likely to be found in an airport bookstand.
Derbyshire’s father was a clergyman. In the first book Mr Carter can’t put out the light till D. has read his Bible passage and said his prayers. And none of the boys, who are about to set the new boys challenges as a kind of hazing, remarks on D.’s devotions. Another fan here!
You might try the Internet Archive. They "lend" books on the computer, using a library-style arrangement. The loan is at an hour at a time, although you can keep renewing the loan. However, you can only "borrow" a book to the extent that they have a hard-print copy in their collection. So if they only own one copy of a work and somebody else is reading it online, nobody else can access it. They do this to try to comply with copyright laws and operate as a lending library.
It is in litigation and, last I heard, they were having trouble convincing a judge that they are right. Personally, I think that they are, the way they set it up, but they have so far run into judges whose legal analysis runs to "But it's on the internet! Evil!" The trouble is, if the judge is not careful and uses loose analysis, they could accidentally issue a copyright ruling that ends up making every library in violation of copyright law!
While it may end soon, as far as I know Internet Archive is still able to provide access to copyrighted works. I haven't tried recently, though.
She used to read Harold Robbins and other 'spicy' authors and would embarrass us when we bobbed round with our school friends by reciting chunks from memory.
A bit like that scene in Father Ted where Mrs Doyle complains how disgusting contemporary Irish novels are what with 'all the language', and proceeds to give a litany of examples.
“Charles Edwin Jeremy Darbishire,” said the small edition of his father, in capital letters.
“You can keep the Charles Edwin Jeremy, you won’t be needing it,” said Venables. “And you’d better talk to Jennings as you’re both new.” And with the air of one who has already been over-generous to small new fry, he turned to the sublime heights of conversation with his equals.
(I might indulge in some re-reading later)
As various Shipmates have said these are Susan Howatch's Starbridge novels, set in a lightly fictionalised version of Salisbury between 1937 and 1969. I love them and have re-read them many times, although I can see why they might not be everybody's cup of tea.
That makes sense! One of the main themes is how different reality can look from someone else's point of view. My favourites are the first and last in the series - "Glittering Images" and "Absolute Truths".
I rather liked book four actually - it was the only one told from a female point of view. Not that I have any objection to male points of view, but the other five novels had so many similar themes that we started speculating whether someone should write a spoof called “Repetitive Plots”.
I read the Jennings books - I had (much) older cousins and I think some of my books, and there were not so many, came from there. I liked them. Your quote also reminds me of being an 'assisted place' boy at a minor public school, where suddenly (when I entered age 11, whereas most of the others knew each other from the 'prep') everyone used surnames. Christian names were only used very occasionally when someone was trying to be really ingratiating, a weird fact I had to catch on to pretty quick. And then after a few years we all noticed that we were working in a strange kind of parody of something like a Jennings story, and we stopped using surnames - but an uneasy sense of the ingratiating use of Christian names remained. It was all pretty weird, looking back. It's amazing (as Alan Rickman said) I'm sane.
I liked him - 30 years ago I even went to see him (on a tour organised by local churches, probably). I don't think many people under 50 would have come across him now, but I could be wrong.
I read The Thirteen Clocks and The Wonderful O as a child, re-read it recently and found it was still very enjoyable. The lovely Ronald Searle illustrations were part of the charm.
On a different note, I picked up a Dennis Wheatley book from a secondhand stall last weekend. I enjoy occult fiction but interesting though the book is, I really couldn't recommend him as an author now. The casual racism, sexism and snobbery really do stand out in this day and age. You do have to make a mental effort with some older books to put aside the perspective of the modern day and read them as pieces of the time they were written in.
Routine hazard when writing multiple accounts of overlapping events, I suspect.
NB having visited the bear pits more than once back in the day, I was sorry/not sorry when visiting Berne about 12 years ago to discover that the bears are now in a zoo, and their pits are just an exhibition about them and their history.
Yes I remember them!
She was better known for the Milly-Molly-Mandy books, some of which have been reprinted as paperbacks.
I love those books
I have a very battered 1950s anthology which has a Mary Plain story in. I've never come across them anywhere else. I suspect most of the authors in that anthology are long-forgotten.
@Eigon my mum got me a Milly-Molly-Mandy mug for Christmas! I haven't read the books for 40 years but recognised the illustration immediately.
Still love Milly Molly Mandy. We always include a few non-biblical readings at our carol service and for a couple of years I read a shortened version of “Milly Molly Mandy goes carol singing” (though replaced it this year with a reading from Patricia St John’s “Treasures of the Snow” - does anyone remember her? Her books were popular as Sunday school prizes.)
I did very much like Patricia St John's books though - Treasures of the Snow, The Tanglewood's Secret, The Mystery of Pheasant Cottage, Rainbow Garden. I remember them all quite vividly. Those kids all felt very real, with all the flaws and messiness of negative feelings and actions that real kids have. The whole moralistic conversion narrative irritated me, but I liked at least how very different it was for each character. When I look back at the books as an adult, some bits make me cringe - there's a kind of unconscious snobbery in the stories, such as how Terry's mum taking some apples for her sick son is seen as a serious sin that must be acknowledged as such before being forgiven. And perhaps a bit of Victorian-like sentimentality around the poor kids - Lucien, Terry - and their families. But the posh kids are well-depicted! 😄
I became familiar with Milly Molly Mandy when she was serialsed in a comic I used to get when I was about 7. The story was there in full, with only one picture. I later managed to get a new issue of the MMM stories in hardback for my daughter. These were illustrated by Clara Vulliamy, Shirley Hughes daughter. Daughter was never one for giving much feedback, I suspect she may have found the stories a bit dated, but the illustrations were gorgeous.
When I was browsing ebay the other day I saw a complete set of Catherine Cookson novels - 95 titles, good grief, though nothing compared to Barbara Cartland - I wonder if people still read her these days?
I've now got a couple of crime novels by her brother, J. Jefferson Farjeon, who was highly rated by Dorothy Sayers.
Glad you mentioned J.J. Farjeon. I found a cache of his books in the library of a company hostel in Sweden in 1969 and have never seen any since. I have no idea how they got there. They weren't great literature, but fun to read in the style of the 30s thriller writers.
Interesting in her own right, as a prolific author, and also as a close companion of Edward Thomas, with whom she was unhappily in love, and the Dymock poets. I have her 'A Nursery in the Nineties'. There is (or was) a children's fiction prize in her name, and she is cited as the author of 'Morning has Broken'.
These sound awesome. I am a sucker for moralistic conversion narratives. Interestingly when I searched just now on Google Books there were lots of German language e-book editions but nothing in English!
Yes. I still have that. I had her Martin Pippin books as well.
Yes I’ve read her who killed the Curate. I quite enjoyed it, but her detective is very silly.
Me too.
Just finished reading his "Mystery in White" which has been republished. As it was a present from my wife, I read it through to the ended, but found it somewhat tedious.