• The Adventures of Ociee Nash (Netflix) 
• Life with Father (Learning Guide available) (YouTube)
• Cimarron

• American Experience: The Orphan Trains

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)

A list of outstanding work by WWI Women Writers on WWI can be found at FirstWorldWar.com.

Between the Wars

• 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.

World War II

• 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.

Post-War

• 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.

Other

• 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.

DVDs

• 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."

One of the most exquisite books I have ever read, and a book that I repeatedly return to, is PrairyErth (A Deep Map) by William Least Heat-Moon (preview here). It is a book unlike any I've ever previously encountered and is really utterly brilliant, despite the fact that its entire focus (all 640 pages) is on a most insignificant place: Chase County, KS.

You do not need to be from Kansas to appreciate the book (indeed, it was a New York Times-bestseller and Book-of-the-Month Club selection)...it's a book that speaks to the soul, encouraging you to dig deeper, wherever you may be.

From the inside cover:

PrairyErth is a vigorous and exalted evocation of the American land, its people, its past, its hopes. The very word "prairyerth," an old geologic term for the soils of our central grasslands, captures the essence of the American tall-grass country. Only a writer of William Least Heat-Moon's gifts could find in a single Kansas county the narrative of an epic, the nonfiction equivalent of the great American novel.

...Most American readers know three things about Kansas: it is flat, it has something to do with The Wizard of Oz, and the events of In Cold Blood took place there. Three illusions: the first is a lie, the second a fairy tale, the third a nightmare. Chase County is, however, a sparsely populated track in the Flint Hills of central Kansas, "the last remaining grand expanse of tallgrass prairie in America," and PrairyErth lovingly details its 744 square miles and 3,000 souls till it looms as large as the universe while remaining as intimate as a village.

PrairyErth is rich with Chase County's voices past and present, and is filled with anecdotes, gossip from its bars and cafes, Native American lore, and rueful tales of man's inhumanity to man and nature and of nature's indifference to humanity. Heat-Moon recounts the story of a farm couple swept aloft by a tornado; reveals an Indian recipe to avert lightening; unearths a century-old unsolved murder; interviews a retired post mistress, a cowboy, a quarryman, a coyote hunter, a young feminist rancher. PrairyErth sets the story of a nineteenth century tycoon, who dreamed of building a rail line to China through the county, against the memories of a retired Mexican railroad worker who can still recall every tie he spiked for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe. It speaks of the passion of the slavery wars of Bleeding Kansas and the sad fate of the Kaw tribe, and gives us a hundred new ways to see stones, creeks, grasses, birds, beasts, and weather.

Our garden was SUCH a flop this year, for the first time ever, so needless to say, I can only dream of having a pantry such as the one described below (from The Country Kitchen by Della T. Lutes). It makes me long for those "simpler" times and is an inspiration to do more (and better!) next year.

"Autumn is here. The blue of October sky grows thick, is filmed with grey. The apples are picked and barrelled, to put in bins. Baldwins, selected for long keeping, Northern Spies, Greenings, Jonathans, Seek-No-Furthers, Russets, Gillyflowers, in the bins for more immediate use, or, if the cellar is unsafe in coldest weather, in the apple pit outside. Lovely names, incomparable fruit. Cider and vinegar barrels are full. ---

Cellar and pantry are stocked. There is a barrel of wheat flour in the latter, at least a twenty-five-pound sack of white sugar, with as much of brown, and a sack of buckwheat flour, with another of corn meal. When these are used up we shall go to the mill. There is molasses in a big jug, and coffee, tea, and other groceries on the shelves. And the bean barrel - we must not forget the bean barrel, for it plays no inconsiderable part in the winter diet.

In the cellar, besides the bins of apples and potatoes, the piles of squash, turnips, and cabbage lying on the uncovered ground, there are cupboards and shelves full of canned and preserved fruits. Perhaps a pan of broken honeycomb, for my father always kept a few hives of bees.

My mother (as did all her contemporaries) began this preparation for winter with the strawberry crop. When the best and heaviest pickings were over - those that brought the best price - the preserving began, until there were dozens of glasses standing in back in a dark corner in order that the delicate colour might not fade.

Following the strawberries came raspberries - 'rawsberries,' we called them - black caps, and red, also transmuted into jam to be eaten on freshly baked bread for supper or used in tarts; gooseberries for a 'fool' or to be served with game; currants - many, many glasses of jelly, for this makes the best jelly roll, and is the best accompaniment to the chickens, turkey, or game dinner.

Jars of cherries, plums, pears, peaches, and small stone crocks opulen and fragrant with preserves: citron, quince, gingered pears.

And pickles! No end of pickles. First of all there was a barrel of cucumbers preserved in brine. These would be taken out as needed, freshed in cold water, and then soured in spiced vinegar. There were crocks of sweet pickles, mustard pickles, chowchow, piccalilli, watermelon rind. Bottles of catsup - chili sauce. ---

In the attic were bags of nuts, strings of peppers, and bunches of herbs - sage and savoury, as well as those of medicinal nature. And dried apples in some! Ah how pungent was the air, how teasing at every turn was the odour of this provident brewing during all the days of summer and fall. How infinitely satisfactory to the housewifely eye was this cumulative show of conserved surplus, this prescient gratification of anticipated need, this lavish prospicience to individual and family appetite.

Not the cleverness of a well-turned verse, nor the glut of colour in a glowing canvas, can more fully slake the thirst of creeation that does this rich provision for her family's needs satisfy the true home lover. And as a remedy for boredom, ennui, or a flagging spirit, I can recommend nothing more salutary than a garden for production and a cellar for preservation of its harvest."

Copies of any of the following can be ordered via the Espresso Book Machine at Third Place Book's Lake Forest Park location for around $9-13./book.

Religion

• Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints with Reflections for Every Day of the Year Ed. by John Gilmary  Shea
• Short lives of the Saints* By Eleanor Cecilia Donnelly (Lovely!)
• Stories of the Saints for Children by Mary F.Seymour
• Legends of the Saints by Mary F.Seymour
• Stories of Holy Lives by Mary F.Seymour
• Stories of Martyr Priests by Mary F.Seymour
• The Catholic Girls' Guide: Counsels and Devotions by Rev. Francis X. Lasance
• My Prayer Book; Happiness in Goodness by Rev. Francis X. Lasance
• Divine Grace: A Series of Instructions Arranged According to the Baltimore Catechism Ed. by Edmund John Wirth
• Bible History by Rev Richard Gilmour (Nicely illustrated!)
• [Illustrated] Church History of "Christ in His Church" by Rev Richard Brennan
• The Garden of the Soul, or, A Manual of Spiritual Exercises and Instructions by Bishop Richard Challoner

Language Arts

• The Ideal Catholic Readers, Fourth Reader 
• The Ideal Catholic Readers, Fifth Reader 
• The Ideal Catholic Literary Reader: Book One
• The New Century Catholic Series, First Reader
• The New Century Catholic Series, Fifth Reader
• Standard Catholic Readers, Second Reader
• Standard Catholic Readers, Fourth Reader
• The Young Catholic's Illustrated First Reader
• The Young Catholic's Illustrated Third Reader
• The Young Catholic's Illustrated Fifth Reader
• The Young Catholic's Illustrated Speller
• Young Ladies' Illustrated Reader
• Catholic National Readers: The New Third Reader
• Catholic National Readers: The New Fourth Reader
• Catholic National Readers: The New Fifth Reader 
• Lessons in Literature by Sister Mary Lambertine (Excellent!)

Stories for Boys and Girls

• Golden Sands: A Collection of Little Counsels for the Sanctification and Happiness of Daily Life, Third Series Translated from the French by Miss Ella McMahon
• Stories on the Seven Virtues by Agnes Stewart
• The Gamekeeper's Little Son, And Other Stories for Children By Frances Isabelle M. Kershaw
• The Trail of the Dragon and Other Stories ~ Benzinger Brothers (1906)
• Aunt Margaret's Little Neighbors; or, Chats About the Rosary by Skelton Yorke
• Chats About the Catechism: A Book for Girls (A sequel to "Chats About the Rosary") by Skelton Yorke
• Stories for My Children: The Angels and the Sacraments
• Happy-Go-Lucky by Miriam Coles Harris
• Happy-Go-Lucky and Other Stories by Mary Catherine Crowley
• Popular Tales, or, Deeds of Genius by Mary Jane Piercy
• The Golden Ladder: Stories Illustrative of the Eight Beatitudes by Susan Bogert Warner
• Tom's Crucifix, and other Tales by M.F.S.
• The Best Foot Forward and Other Stories [for Boys] by Francis J. Finn
• Industry and Laziness by Franz Hoffman, translated from the German by James King
• The Catholic Children's Magazine ("A Journal of Instructive Amusement for Little Ones;" 1879-80)
• Wide Awake: An Illustrated Magazine, Volume 27 (1888)
"A collection of delightful stories with illustrations quite as good as the stories. The happy boy or girl who has this book to read will not only be entertained but instructed also." - Catholic World

"Father Finn's Famous Stories"

• Tom Playfair, or, Making a Start by Francis J. Finn
• Harry Dee (1892)
• My Strange Friend by Francis J. Finn (1897)
• Bobbie in Movie Land
• The Fairy of the Snows (1913)
• Facing Danger (1919)

It was this blog post that first introduced me to Della Thompson Lutes (and Ruth Suckow, whom I'll be reading next), and for that, I am eternally grateful. I've just finished reading Millbrook, one of her six autobiographical novels, and it was truly a delight!  The book is set in a small Southern Michigan farming community in the 1880s; here is a sample that seemed especially timely now, at the very height of summer:

Summer was far too busy a season to allow for much visiting, speculation, or gossip. Women were in their kitchens. Bread to bake as well as cakes, cookies, and pies; vegetables to prepare; milk to care for; butter to churn.

They were in the gardens: fruit to pick for shortcakes, pies, tarts, preserves. They were in their poulty yards: young chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese to be fed, watered, housed, gathered in from storms; eggs to be brought in.

They washed: shoulder-sweated shirts and stiff, groin-sweated overalls; sheets yellowed by soil-stained, perspiring bodies. And in a wooden tub on a bench too low for comfort, scrubbing their knuckles on a corrugated board of zinc, using soft soap they themselves had made.

They ironed, sensibly, only the clothing that showed, and linen for the tables. Where there were girls and young women, of course, there were innumerable ruffles -- petticoats, corset covers, lawn and organdie dresses. The irons were solid and heavy (used in winter, tipped up sideways between the knees, for cracking nuts, and also heated for warming beds) and, even through the padded holder, seared and callused the hands.

They worked: Adelaide from the first paling of a morning sky until the bats flew at dusk and the night hawk dipped, cleaving the air with a downward noisy swish of his stiffly outspread wings; but her heart was light. (Millbrook, p. 258-9)

I'm waiting on a copy of the author's famed Country Kitchen, and will be eagerly tracking down copies of her other books as well. While all are currently out-of-print, copies can be found quite inexpensively online. Hopefully one day her work will again be back in print because it is truly worthy of a wider reading audience.

Though there is sadly little that has been published about her life, a wonderful introductory essay is: A Word For What Was Eaten: An Introduction to Della T. Lutes and Her Fiction by Lawrence R. Dawson. The following biography is an excerpt, also written by Mr. Dawson, from the Dictionary of Midwestern Literature: Volume 1: The Authors by Phillip A. Greasley, Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature.

Della Thompson grew up on a farm in Summit Township in Jackson County, Michigan, the only child of Elijah Bonnet Thompson, of New York state, and Almira Frances (Bogardus) Thompson, of Detroit. Completing high school in Jackson at sixteen, she became accredited to teach in country schools. Those years were the source of her retrospective writing. She taught in Jackson County and then in Detroit for a few years. In 1893 she married Louis Irving Lutes and had two sons, the older being killed in a shooting accident when he was seven.

She said that her first writing for money appeared in the Detroit Free Press. In October 1905, the Delineator began her six-part story, "Deestrick No. 5." Her first book, Just Away: A Story of Hope (1906) was promoted by the death of her son, Ralph, and dedicated "To the mothers who sorrowed with me in my sorrow." Impressed by this work, the publishers invited her in 1907 to Cooperstown, New York, to join the editorial staff of their journals American Motherhood, Table Talk, and Today's Housewife. In 1924 she became housekeeping editor of Modern Priscilla and manager of the Priscilla Proving Plant (a Betty Crocker-type institute).in Newton, Massachusetts.

Her writing was directed by her editorial responsibilities under the Priscilla organization disbanded after the 1929 stock market crash, her articles, pamphlets and books being mainly concerned with home-making topics. Still, her stylistic qualities of common sense and often pungent wit grew during these years.

The appearance of her essay "Simple Epicure" in the Atlantic of March 1935 began her success with a larger public. This essay and others which quickly followed provoked an unusually broad reaction from the magazine's readers, a great many of whom were men. These essays were collected and published in 1936 as The Country Kitchen; the book established her as a best-selling, sought-after writer and speaker. During her last years, her surviving sone, Robert, became her leg man, researching her last books. She died on July 13, 1942, at Cooperstown, New York. Her ashes were returned, as she wished, to Michigan for interment at Horton.

Significance: Della Lute's writing is significant for its rendering of the end-of-the-century cultural period, as her readers recognized when her articles and books appeared during the 1930s and 1940s. Appealing to natives of rural Michigan and the Midwest, her books brought letters of praise from every part of the nation and from other countries, including Russia. Detailing the landscapes through the changing seasons, her stories also brought alive local politics, schooling, architecture and interior decoration, moral standards, social attitudes, and, in a unique way, the food as "prepared by late nineteenth century southern Michigan farm wives" ("A Word..." 31). Her readers commended her writing particularly for its affectionate, realistic, and accurate recording of rural family life as it was lived in America at the end of the nineteenth century.

Select Books by Della Thompson Lutes:

• The Country Kitchen (1936)
• Homegrown (1937)
• Millbrook (1938)
• Gabriel's Search (1940)
• Country Schoolma'am (1941)
• Cousin William (1942)

A few contemporary reviews of The Country Kitchen, a wildly successful bestseller which was voted "The Most Original Book Published in 1936," can be found here:

• Della Lutes and Peculiar Institution of the Box Social
• Della T. Lutes and Home Cooking
• The Country Kitchen by Della T. Lutes

By Publication Date:

1. St. John Bosco and the Children's Saint, Dominic Savio by Catherine Beebe (1955)
2. St. Therese and the Roses by Helen Walker Homan (1955)
3. Father Marquette and the Great Rivers by August Derleth (1955)
4. St. Francis of the Seven Seas by Albert J. Nevins (1955)
5. Bernadette and the Lady by Hertha Pauli (1956)
6. St. Isaac and the Indians by Milton Lomask (1956)
7. Fighting Father Duffy by Jim and Virginia Lee Bishop (1956)
8. St. Pius X, the Farm Boy Who Became Pope by Walter Diethelm (1956)
9. St. Ignatius and the Company of Jesus by August Derleth (1956)
10. John Carroll: Bishop and Patriot by Milton Lomask (1956)
11. St. Dominic and the Rosary by Catherine Beebe (1956)
12. The Cross in the West by Mark Boesch (1956)
13. My Eskimos: A Priest in the Artic by Roger P. Buliard (1956)
14. Champions in Sports and Spirit by Ed Fitzgerald (1956)
15. Francis and Clare, Saints of Assisi by Helen Walker Homan (1956)
16. Christmas and the Saints by Hertha Pauli (1956)
17. Edmund Campion, Hero of God's Underground by Harold C. Gardiner (1957)
18. Modern Crusaders by John Travers Moore and Rosemarian Staudacher (1957)
19. Our Lady Came to Fatima by Ruth Fox Hume (1957)
20. The Bible Story, The Promised Lord and His Coming by Catherine Beebe (1957)
21. St. Augustine and His Search for Faith by Milton Lomask (1957)
22. St. Joan, The Girl Soldier by Louis de Wohl (1957)
23. St. Thomas More of London by Elizabeth M. Ince (1957)
24. Mother Seton and the Sisters of Charity by Alma Power-Waters (1957)
25. St. Thomas Aquinas and the Preaching Beggars by Brendan Larnen and Milton Lomask (1957)
26. Father Damien and the Bells by Arthur and Elizabeth Sheehan (1957)
27. Columbus and the New World by August Derleth (1957)
28. St. Philip of the Joyous Heart by Francis X. Connolly (1957)
29. Lydia Longley, the First American Nun by Helen A. McCarthy (1958)
30. St. Anthony and the Christ Child by Helen Walker Homan (1958)
31. St. Elizabeth's Three Crowns by Blanche Jennings Thompson (1958)
32. Katharine Drexel, Friend of the Neglected by Ellen Tarry (1958)
33. St. Louis and the Last Crusade by Margaret Ann Hubbard (1958)
34. Kateri Tekakwitha, Mohawk Maid by Evelyn M. Brown (1958)
35. St. Benedict, Hero of the Hills by Mary Fabyan Windeatt (1958)
36. The Cure of Ars, The Priest Who Outtalked the Devil by Milton Lomask (1958)
37. Catholic Campuses, Stories of American Catholic Colleges by RosemarianStaudacher (1958)
38. St. Helena and the True Cross by Louis de Wohl (1959)
39. Governor Al Smith by James Farley and James Conniff (1959)
40. Kit Carson of the Old West by Mark Boesch (1959)
41. Rose Hawthorne: The Pilgramage of Nathaniel's Daughter by Arthur and Elizabeth Sheehan (1959)
42. The Ursulines, Nuns of Adventure by Harnett T. Kane (1959)
43. Mother Cabrini, Missionary to the World by Frances Parkinson Keyes (1959)
44. More Champions in Sports and Spirit by Ed Fitzgerald (1959)
45. St. Margaret Mary, Apostle of the Sacred Heart by Ruth Fox Hume (1960)
46. When Saints Were Young by Blanche Jennings Thompson (1960)
47. Frances Warde and the First Sisters of Mercy by Sr. Marie Christopher (1960)
48. Vincent de Paul, Saint of Charity by Margaret Ann Hubbard (1960)
49. Florence Nightingale's Nuns by Emmeline Garnett (1961)
50. Pope Pius XII, the World's Shepherd by Louis de Wohl (1961)
51. St. Jerome and the Bible by George Sanderlin (1961)
52. Saints of the Byzantine World by Blanche Jennings Thompson (1961)
53. Chaplains in Action by Rosemarian Staudacher (1962)
54. St. Catherine Laboure and the Miraculous Medal by Alma Power-Waters (1962)
55. Mother Barat's Vineyard by Margaret Ann Hubbard (1962)
56. Charles de Foucauld, Adventurer of the Desert by Emmeline Garnett (1962)
57. Martin de Porres, Saint of the New World by Ellen Tarry (1963)
58. Marguerite Bourgeoys, Pioneer Teacher by Sister Mary Genevieve (1963)
59. Father Kino, Priest to the Pimas by Ann Nolan Clark (1963)
60. Children Welcome: Villages for Boys and Girls by Rosemarian Staudacher (1963)
61. St. Gregory the Great, Consul of God by George Sanderlin (1964)
62. Peter and Paul: The Rock and the Sword by Blanche Jennings Thompson (1964)
63. Irish Saints by Robert T. Reilly (1964)
64. Dear Philippine: Mission of Mother Duchesne by Margaret Ann Hubbard (1964)
65. Peter Claver, Saint Among Slaves by Ann Roos (1965)
66. John Neumann, The Children's Bishop by Elizabeth Odell Sheehan (1965)
67. St. Francis de Sales by Blanche Jennings Thompson (1965)
68. Sarah Peter: The Dream and the Harvest by Alma Power-Waters (1965)
69. Good Pope John by Elizabeth Odell Sheehan (1966)
70. In American Vineyards, Religious Orders in the United States by Rosemarian Staudacher (1966)
71. Brother Andre of Montreal by Ann Nolan Clark (1967)
72. Edel Quinn: Beneath the Southern Cross by Evelyn Brown (1967)

A Timeline of Vision Books
(Note: If I wasn't sure about a title's placement, it is listed in italics)

• The Bible Story, The Promised Lord and His Coming by Catherine Beebe
• Peter and Paul: The Rock and the Sword by Blanche Jennings Thompson
• St. Helena and the True Cross by Louis de Wohl (ca 245/6-330)
• St. Jerome and the Bible by George Sanderlin (347-420)
• St. Augustine and His Search for Faith by Milton Lomask (354-430)
• St. Benedict, Hero of the Hills by Mary Fabyan Windeatt (480-547)
• St. Gregory the Great, Consul of God by George Sanderlin (540-604)
• Saints of the Byzantine World by Blanche Jennings Thompson 
• Irish Saints by Robert T. Reilly
• Francis and Clare, Saints of Assisi by Helen Walker Homan (1181/2-1253)
• St. Dominic and the Rosary by Catherine Beebe (1170-1221)
• St. Anthony and the Christ Child by Helen Walker Homan (1195-1231)
• St. Elizabeth's Three Crowns by Blanche Jennings Thompson (1207-1231)
• St. Louis and the Last Crusade by Margaret Ann Hubbard (1215-1270)
• St. Thomas Aquinas and the Preaching Beggars by Brendan Larnen and Milton Lomask (1225-1274)
• St. Joan, The Girl Soldier by Louis de Wohl (1412-1431)
• Columbus and the New World by August Derleth (1451-1506)
• St. Thomas More of London by Elizabeth M. Ince (1478-1535)
• St. Ignatius and the Company of Jesus by August Derleth (1491-1556)
• St. Francis of the Seven Seas by Albert J. Nevins (1506-1552)
• St. Philip of the Joyous Heart by Francis X. Connolly (1516-1595)
• Edmund Campion, Hero of God's Underground by Harold C. Gardiner (1540-1581)
• St. Francis de Sales by Blanche Jennings Thompson (1567-1622)
• Martin de Porres, Saint of the New World by Ellen Tarry (1579-1639)
• Peter Claver, Saint Among Slaves by Ann Roos (1580-1654) 
• Vincent de Paul, Saint of Charity by Margaret Ann Hubbard (1581-1660)
• St. Isaac and the Indians by Milton Lomask (1607-1646)
• Marguerite Bourgeoys, Pioneer Teacher by Sister Mary Genevieve (1620-1700)
• Father Marquette and the Great Rivers by August Derleth (1637-1675)
• Father Kino, Priest to the Pimas by Ann Nolan Clark (1645-1711)
• St. Margaret Mary, Apostle of the Sacred Heart by Ruth Fox Hume (1647-1690)
• Kateri Tekakwitha, Mohawk Maid by Evelyn M. Brown (1656-1680)
• Lydia Longley, the First American Nun by Helen A. McCarthy (1674-1758)
• John Carroll: Bishop and Patriot by Milton Lomask (1735-1815)
• Dear Philippine: Mission of Mother Duchesne by Margaret Ann Hubbard (1769-1852)
• Mother Seton and the Sisters of Charity by Alma Power-Waters (1774-1821)
• Mother Barat's Vineyard by Margaret Ann Hubbard (1779-1865)
• The Cross in the West by Mark Boesch 
• The Cure of Ars, The Priest Who Outtalked the Devil by Milton Lomask (1786-1859)
• St. Catherine Laboure and the Miraculous Medal by Alma Power-Waters (1806-1876)
• Kit Carson of the Old West by Mark Boesch (1809-1868)
• Frances Warde and the First Sisters of Mercy by Sr. Marie Christopher (1810-1884)
• John Neumann, The Children's Bishop by Elizabeth Odell Sheehan (1811-1860)
• St. John Bosco and the Children's Saint, Dominic Savio by Catherine Beebe (1815-1888; 1842-1857)
• Florence Nightingale's Nuns by Emmeline Garnett (1820-1910)
• St. Pius X, the Farm Boy Who Became Pope by Walter Diethelm (1835-1914)
• Father Damien and the Bells by Arthur and Elizabeth Sheehan (1840-1889)
• Bernadette and the Lady by Hertha Pauli (1844-1879)
• Brother Andre of Montreal by Ann Nolan Clark (1845-1937)
• Mother Cabrini, Missionary to the World by Frances Parkinson Keyes (1850-1917)
• Rose Hawthorne: The Pilgramage of Nathaniel's Daughter by Arthur and Elizabeth Sheehan (1851-1926)
• Katharine Drexel, Friend of the Neglected by Ellen Tarry (1858-1955)
• Sarah Peter: The Dream and the Harvest by Alma Power-Waters
• Charles de Foucauld, Adventurer of the Desert by Emmeline Garnett (1858-1916)
• Fighting Father Duffy by Jim and Virginia Lee Bishop (1871-1932)
• St. Therese and the Roses by Helen Walker Homan (1873-1897)
• Governor Al Smith by James Farley and James Conniff (1873-1944)
• Pope Pius XII, the World's Shepherd by Louis de Wohl (1876-1958)
• Edel Quinn: Beneath the Southern Cross by Evelyn Brown (1907-1944)
• My Eskimos: A Priest in the Artic by Roger P. Buliard (1909--)
• Our Lady Came to Fatima by Ruth Fox Hume (1917)
• Good Pope John by Elizabeth Odell Sheehan 
• Modern Crusaders by John Travers Moore and Rosemarian Staudacher

Not Classified:

• Champions in Sports and Spirit by Ed Fitzgerald 
• Christmas and the Saints by Hertha Pauli
• Catholic Campuses, Stories of American Catholic Colleges by Rosemarian Staudacher 
• The Ursulines, Nuns of Adventure by Harnett T. Kane 
• More Champions in Sports and Spirit by Ed Fitzgerald 
• When Saints Were Young by Blanche Jennings Thompson 
• Chaplains in Action by Rosemarian Staudacher 
• Children Welcome: Villages for Boys and Girls by Rosemarian Staudacher 
• In American Vineyards, Religious Orders in the United States by Rosemarian Staudacher

• The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
• Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee
• A Much Married Man by Nicholas Coleridge
• The "Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter" Series by Susan Wittig Albert:  
• The Tale of Hill Top Farm
• The Tale of Holly How
• The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood
• The Tale of Hawthorn House
• The Tale of Briar Bank
• The Tale of Applebeck Orchard
• The Tale of Oat Cake Crag
• The Chronicles of Barsetshire by Anthony Trollope:
• The Warden (1855)
• Barchester Towers (1857)
• Doctor Thorne (1858)
• Framley Parsonage (1861)
• The Small House at Allington (1864)
• The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867)
• The Barsetshire Novels (29 books) by Angela Thirkell
• The Fairacre Series (18 books) and Thrush Green Series (12 books) by Miss Read
• Tales from Turnham Malpas
• The "Make Way for Lucia" Series by E.F. Benson  
• Queen Lucia (1920)
• Miss Mapp (1922)
• Lucia in London (1927)
• Mapp and Lucia (1931)
• Lucia's Progress (1935, also known as The Worshipful Lucia)
• Trouble for Lucia (1939)
• The "Allways Trilogy" by Bevery Nichols:
• Down the Garden Path
• A Thatched Roof
• Village in a Valley
• The "Appletree Saga" by Mary Emily Pearce:
  
  • Apple Tree Lean Down (1973)
  • Jack Mercybright (1975)
  • The Sorrowing Wind (1975)
  Other novels by Mary E. Pearce:
  
  • Cast a Long Shadow (1977)
  • The Two Farms (1985)
  • The Land Endures (1978)
  • Seedtime and Harvest (1980)
  • Polsinney Harbour (1984)
  • The Old House at Railes (1993)

• Haweswater by Sarah Hall
• The New Rector by Rebecca Shaw
• A Month in the Country by James Carr
• Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
• Our Village by Mary Russell Mitford
• Lark Rise to Candleford: A Trilogy and Still Glides the Stream by Flora Thompson
• The Cranford Chronicles by Elizabeth Gaskell
• Ulverton by Adam Thorpe
• Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
• Diary of a Country Parson: 1758-1802 by James Woodforde
• The Darling Buds of May by H.E. Bates
• Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
• Nonfiction: Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village by Ronald Blythe

Authors

• D.E. Stevenson
• Jane Austen
• Barbara Pym
• Miss Read (Dora Jessie Saint)
• P.G. Wodehouse

Books Read This Month:

• How the Heather Looks: A Joyous Journey to the British Sources of Children's Books by Joan Bodger
• Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple
• The Children Who Lived in a Barn by Eleanor Graham
• The House of Arden by E. Nesbit
• Ask Me No Questions by Ann Schlee
• Mama's Babies by Gary Crew
• Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin

Currently Reading:

• Amelia Dyer: Angel Maker: The Woman Who Murdered Babies for Money by Alison Rattle and Allison Vale
• The Real Oliver Twist: Robert Blincoe: A Life That Illuminates a Violent Age by John Waller
• English Children's Books: 1600-1900 by Percy Muir (sporadically)

Still on the Nightstand (Partially Read):

• Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield
• The Book of Margery Kempe
• The Age of the Cloister: The Story of Monastic Life in the Middle Ages by Christopher Nugent Lawrence

Reading Next:

• Undecided, but it will be something from my increasingly massive TBR list (on the right).

Please visit 5 Minutes for Books to check out more participants' lists!

Yet another fabulous find, The Pictorial Webster's:

"Featuring over 1,500 engravings that originally graced the pages of Webster's dictionaries in the 19th century, this chunky volume is an irresistible treasure trove for art lovers, designers, and anyone with an interest in visual history. Meticulously cleaned and restored by fine-press bookmaker Johnny Carrera, the engravings in Pictorial Webster's have been compiled into an alluring and unusual visual reference guide for the modern day. Images range from the entirely mysterious to the classically iconic. From Acorns to Zebras, Bell Jars to Velocipedes, these alphabetically arranged archetypes and curiosities create enigmatic juxtapositions and illustrate the items deemed important to the Victorian mind. Sure to inspire and delight, Pictorial Webster's is at once a fascinating historical record and a stunning jewel of a book."

Also available:

• "Icons & Curiosities" Wall Cards
• "Flora & Fauna" Stamp Set

This past week I've encountered a number of publishers devoted to reprinting classics, including some previously rare or hard-to-find titles. I thought I would share a few of my favorites here!

For Children

Jane Nissen Books (UK)

Jane Nissen Books is an imprint founded by a former Associate Publisher at Penguin Children's Books. "The purpose of this personal venture is to bring back into print some of the best-loved children’s books of the 20th century and to enable a new generation of readers to discover for themselves high-quality, timeless titles that should not be lost." A list of titles and descriptions can be found here (*wonderful* selections!). Many of the books are available to US customers via The Book Depository, the rest can be found at Amazon UK.

"Publisher of fiction from the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. We have many of your favorite girls fiction books and series - and more to come! Image Cascade publishes heart warming stories of family, love, and timeless values. Our authors have written novels that are rich with nostalgia, true to life social and dating situations, strong families, and, of course, love and romance. This is the cornerstone of Image Cascade. There is something for everyone - tweens to teens, young adults to adults."

Purple House Press


"Our mission is to revive long lost, but well loved children's books. Today's children deserve to read wholesome stories from a simpler time and we know grownups want to revisit with old childhood friends too!"

Fidra Books (UK)


"We are an independent publishing company specialising in rescuing neglected children’s fiction and making it available to a new generation of readers. Our books range from 1940s adventure stories to iconic 1960s fantasy novels, and from pony books by Carnegie medal winning authors to rare boarding school stories from the 1990s." Fidra Books are available to US customers from The Book Depository.

For Mothers

Persephone Books (UK)

"Persephone prints mainly neglected 20th-century fiction and non-fiction by women, for women and about women. The titles are chosen to appeal to busy women who rarely have time to spend in ever-larger bookshops and who would like to have access to a list of books designed to be neither too literary nor too commercial. The books are guaranteed to be readable, thought-provoking and impossible to forget." Authors include Noel Streatfield, Frances Hodson Burnett, Dorothy Whipple, and many, many others. (For US customers, these books are most easily acquired from The Book Depository)

The Bloomsbury Group

A simply gorgeous line of cloth-bound classics, designed exclusively for Waterstone's in the UK. The titles include: Madame Bovary, Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights, Sense and Sensibility, Cranford, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Pride and Prejudice, Crime and Punishment, Jane Eyre, and The Picture of Dorian Gray. Fortunately, the books are now also available at Amazon in the US. An interview with the designer, Coralie Bickford-Smith can be found here.