Since much of my reading last year pertained to the Victorians, this year I've decided to dive into the 20th century. My focus will be on [mostly British] women's writing from the period prior to the Great War through the 1950s.

With that in mind, I've compiled the following reading list for myself, picking and choosing whatever looked interesting, and likely missing some gems along the way. I don't expect to read every book here, because I'm sure I won't manage, and there will undoubtedly be numerous rabbit-trails to lead me astray. Nevertheless, it should be an enjoyable reading year!

World War I

• [Pre-WWI] The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West.
• The Virago Book of Women and the Great War edited by Joyce Marlow
• High Wages by Dorothy Whipple: Another novel by Persephone's bestselling writer about a girl setting up a dress shop just before the First World War.
• Round About a Pound a Week by Maud Pember Reeves: A study of working-class life in Lambeth before WWI that is witty, readable, poignant and fascinating - and relevant nowadays. (Public Domain)
• Home Fires in France by Dorothy Canfield Fisher: A collection of 11 short stories based on the author's war work in France. (Public Domain)
• Christine (1917) by Elizabeth von Arnim (published under the pseudonym Alice Cholmondeley). Info. (Public Domain)
• This is the End (1917) by Stella Benson: A novel set in London during the First World War, written while the war was still going on. It features a lady novelist, a woman bus conductor and a variety of indecisive men. (Public Domain)
• A Diary Without Dates (1918) by Enid Bagnold: An intimate, informal diary of the writer's personal experiences in a hospital for the war victims, vividly done and extremely good reading. (Public Domain).
• The War Workers by EM Delafield - Published in 1918, the story centers around the characters that live and work at an army support institution during WWI. (Public Domain)
• Missing (1917) by Mrs. Humphrey Ward. (Public Domain)
• The War and Elizabeth (1918) by Mrs. Humphrey Ward (Public Domain)
• Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain: One of the most famous autobiographies of the First World War, is Brittain's account of how she survived the period; how she lost the man she loved; how she nursed the wounded and how she emerged into an altered world.
• William - an Englishman by Cicely Hamilton: Prize-winning 1919 novel about the effect of WWI on a socialist clerk and a suffragette. (Public Domain)

• Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh: Satiric novel published in 1930 examining the frenetic but empty lives of the 'Bright Young Things.'
• Diary of a Provincial Lady (1930) by EM Delafield.
• Bricks and Mortar by Helen Ashton: An excellent 1932 novel by a very popular pre- and post-war writer, chronicling the life of a hard-working kindly Londy architect and his wife over thirty-five years. Review here.
• Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyn. A young woman's life in 1930s Bohemian London. Review here.
• The New House by Lettice Cooper: A 1936 portrayal of the day a family moves into a new house, and the resulting adjustments and tensions. Review here.
• Lady Rose and Mrs. Memmary by Ruby Ferguson: A 1937 novel about Lady Rose, who inherits a great house, marries well - and then meets the love of her life on a park bench. A greate favorite of the Queen Mother. Review here.
• One Pair of Hands by Monica Dickens: A 1939 book which recounts the authors pre-WWII time working as a cook-general in various homes around London
• Manja: The Story of Five Children by Anna Gmeyner: A 1938 German novel about five children conceived on the same night in 1920, and their lives until the Nazi takeover in 1933. Review here.
• The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West. (Public Domain)
• The Proper Place by O. Douglas. Review here.
• Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther. Essays on life in pre-WWII London; originally appeared as a column in The Times.

• Wave Me Goodbye/Hearts Undefeated Omnibus, Women's Writing of the Second World War (Virago) edited by Anne Boston and Jenny Hartley
• The Provincial Lady in Wartime (1940) by EM Delafield.
• Henrietta's War: News from the Home Front 1939-1942 by Joyce Dennys. Review here and here.
• Henrietta Sees it Through: More News from the Home Front 1942-45  by Joyce Dennys. Review here.
• Nella Last's War: The Second World War Diaries of Housewife, 49 by Nella Last.
• An Interrupted Life: Etty Hillesum, The Diaries 1941-1943 by Etty Hillesum. Review here.
• Saplings by Noel Streatfield: A novel by the well-known author of Ballet Shoes, about the destruction of a family during WW2. Review here.
• House-Bound by Winifred Peck: This 1942 novel describes an Edinburgh woman deciding, radically, to run her house without help and do her own cooking; the war is in the background and foreground. Review here and here.
• Few Eggs and No Oranges by Vere Hodgson: A 600-page diary, written from 1940-45 in Notting Hill Gate, full of acute observation, wit and humanity. Review here.
• On the Other Side: Letters to My Children from Germany 1940-46 by Mathilde Wolff-Monckeberg: Written in Hamburg but never sent, these letters provide a crucial counterpoint to Few Eggs and No Oranges. Review here.
• Good Evening, Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes: Superbly written short stories, first published in The New Yorker from 1938-44. Review here and here.
• There Were No Windows by Norah Hoult: A touching and funny novel, written in 1944, about an elderly woman with memory loss living in Kensington during the blitz. Review here.
• A House in the Country by Jocelyn Playfair: An unusual and very interesting 1944 novel about a group of people living in the country during WW2. Review here.
• The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen:  A brilliant recreation of the tense and dangerous atmosphere of London during the bombing raids of World War II. Review here.
• Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski: Novel about a father's search for his son in France in late 1945. One of Persephone's best sellers! Review here.
• Doreen by Barbara Noble: A 1946 novel about a child who is evacuated to the country during the war. Her mother regrets it; the family that takes her in wants to keep her.
• Miss Ranskill Comes Home by Barbara Euphan Todd: An unsparing, wry 1946 novel: Miss Ranskill is shipwrecked and returns to a completely changed wartime England. Review here.

• The Bread and Butter Stories by Mary Norton: These 15 recently discovered short stories by the author of The Borrowers are wonderful period pieces about being an upper-middle class woman in the 1940s and early 50s.
• Tell It to a Stranger by Elizabeth Berridge: Funny, observant and bleak 1947 short stories, twice in the Evening Standard bestseller list. Review here.
• Minnie's Room: The Peacetime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes 1947-1965: Second volume of short stories first published in The New Yorker. Review here.
• Nella Last's Peace: The Post-War Diaries of a Housewife, 49 by Nella Last.
• Nella Last in the 1950s: The Further Diaries of Housewife, 49 by Nella Last.
• The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters: A ghostly tale about the collapse of the British class system after WWII. Review here. 
• Provinicial Daughter by RM Dashwood: A novel written by EM Delafield's daughter about the trials of a 1950s housewife in an English village.  
• The Village by Marghanita Laski: This 1952 comedy of manners describes post-war readjustments in village life when love ignores the class barrier.
• Daddy's Gone A-Hunting by Penelope Mortimer: This 1958 novel is about the 'captive wives' of the pre-women's liberation era, bored and lonely in the suburbs. Review here.

• The Feminine Middlebrow Novel, 1920s to 1950s: Class, Domesticity, and Bohemianism by Nicola Humble
• A Very Great Profession: The Womans' Novel 1914 -39 by Nicola Beauman: A mixture of literary criticism and historical evocation, first published 25 years ago, about women writers of the inter-war period. Review here.
• Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper by Alexandra Harris
• The Great Silence: Britain from the Shadow of the First World War to the Dawn of the Jazz Age by Juliet Nicolson
• The Wartime House: Home Life in Wartime Britain 1939-1945 by Mike Brown and Carol Harris
• A Woman's Place by Ruth Adam: A survey of women's lives from 1900-75, very readably written by a novelist-historian: an overview full of insights. Review here.

• Enemy at the Door: Series 1, Series 2
• Wish Me Luck: Series 1, Series 2
• Wartime Britain: Boxed set including "The Heat of the Day" (based on the Elizabeth Bowen novel), "Housewife, 49" (based on the journals of Lancashire housewife Nella Last) and "Island at War."