"Every man is an inexhaustible treasury of human personality. He can go on burrowing in it for an eternity if he has the desire - and a taste for introspection. I like to keep myself well within the field of the microscope, and, with as much detachment as I can muster, to watch myself live, to report my observations of what I say, feel, think. In default of others, I am myself my own spectator and self-appreciator - critical, discerning, vigilant, fond! --- I never cease to interest myself in the Gothic architecture of my own fantastic soul." (The Journal of a Disappointed Man)

This week I read The Journal of a Disappointed Man by W.N.P. Barbellion, my third book for 52 Books in 52 Weeks. The Journal was recently re-published by Little Toller Books in the UK and is also available in the public domain via Google Books and the Internet Archive. It has been called a "masterpiece of personal observation," likened to the work of writers such as Franz Kafka and James Joyce, and was described by Ronald Blythe as "among the most moving diaries ever created."

W.N.P. Barbellion was the nom-de-plume of Bruce Frederick Cummings (7 September 1889 - 22 October 1919). The initials W.N.P. stood for Wilhelm Nero Pilate, whom the author thought to be the most despicable people in history (Wilhelm being Kaiser Wilhelm the II since the diaries were published during the First World War). Barbellion was a name above a shop in South Kensington that Cummings passed every day.

The Journal begins in 1903 when the author is 13 years old. His brother would later recall:

"He read all kinds of books, from Kingsley to Carlyle, with an insatiable appetite. It was about this time, too, that he began those long tramps into the countryside, over the hills to watch the staghounds meet, and along the broad river marshes, that provided the beginnings and the foundation of the diary habit, which became in time the very breath of his inner life.

In these early years, I remember, the diary took the outward form of an old exercise book, neatly labelled and numbered, and it reflected all his observations on nature. The records, some of which were reproduced from time to time in The Zoologist, were valuable not only in their careful exactitude, but for their breadth of suggestion, and that inquiring spirit into the why of things which proved him to be no mere classifier or reporter. They were the outcome of long vigils of concentrated watching."

He taught himself how to dissect, and afterwards his patient and unerring skill surprised his examiners. "Scientists and naturalists of repute--reading his published records of observations--called upon him and were puzzled to find him a mere boy." By the time he was fourteen, "his fixed determination to become a naturalist by profession was accepted by all of us as a settled thing." (A.J. Cummings, A Last Diary)

Despite being almost entirely self-taught, in October 1911 he placed first in an examination for a position at the British Museum of Natural History in London, and in January 1912 commenced an assistantship there.


"For an unusually long time after I grew up, I maintained a beautiful confidence in the goodness of mankind. Rumours did reach me, but I brushed them aside as slanders. I was an ingénu, unsuspecting, credulous." (The Journal of a Disappointed Man)

Gradually, as his ambitions began to change, his writing evolved from the dry scientific notes of the earlier Journal into something more personal and literary (and hence, imminently more readable!).

"He wrote down instinctively and by habit his inmost thoughts, his lightest impression of the doings of the day, a careless jest that amused him, an irritating encounter with a foolish or a stupid person, something newly seen in the structure of a bird's wing, a sunset effect. It was only on rare occasions that he deliberately experimented with forms of expression." (A.J. Cummings, A Last Diary)

There is an element of despair throughout the Journal as he struggled with chronic ill-health (and a fair amount of hyperchondria), and also occasional bouts of depression. "Chronically sub-normal" was how he once described his condition to his brother. In London, he grew slowly and steadily worse and, upon the advice of his brother saw a "first-class nerve specialist" who promptly diagnosed him with what we now call multiple sclerosis. Yet the decision was made not to tell him the true nature of his illness, so as not to precipitate his demise.

In October of 1914, he discovered the Journal of the Russian painter Marie Bashkirtseff (1858–1884). “I am simply astounded," he writes. “It would be difficult in all the world’s history to discover any two persons with temperaments so alike. She is the ‘very spit of me’!”  This seems to have inspired his decision, in December of that year, to "prepare and publish a volume of this Journal."

The diaries, up through the winter of 1917 were eventually published in March 1919 and the book was an immediate sensation (though many believed it was a work of fiction, written by H.G. Wells who had written book's preface). A later journal entitled A Last Diary was published after his death in 1919, as well as a book of essays, Enjoying Life and Other Literary Remains.

"I do not think that there can be two minds about the great literary qualities and the poignant interest of his one tragic work. It is a book that is continually sought and steadily reprinted – the story of a soul in the grip of the obscure and pitiless arterial [sic] disease that finally killed him, resolved to find expression and a use for itself in the ever darkening shadow of death. 'Barbellion’s Diary' I am convinced will still be read with interest, curiosity and sympathy, when most of the larger more fluid successes of to-day have passed out of attention." (H. G. Wells, letter to Barbellion’s widow, 8 September 1925, Source)

"For as long as his remarkable journal is published he will live with it, his constrained existence celebrated for the courage that so brightly distinguishes it." (William Trevor, “On the Shelf”, Sunday Times, 5 November 1995, Source)

"To me the honour is sufficient of belonging to the universe — such a great universe, and so grand a scheme of things. Not even Death can rob me of that honour. For nothing can alter the fact that I have lived; I have been I, if for ever so short a time. And when I am dead, the matter which composes my body is indestructible—and eternal, so that come what may to my 'Soul,' my dust will always be going on, each separate atom of me playing its separate part — I shall still have some sort of a finger in the pie. When I am dead, you can boil me, burn me, drown me, scatter me — but you cannot destroy me: my little atoms would merely deride such heavy vengeance. Death can do no more than kill you." (The Journal of a Disappointed Man)

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."

Cicely Mary Hamilton was born Cicely Hammill in Paddington, London on June 15, 1872. Her father was an army captain serving abroad, and her mother disappeared from her life when she was ten (it is thought she was committed to an asylum). Raised by foster parents, she was educated at a private boarding school in Malvern and at Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, a small spa town in Germany.

After school, she had a brief stint as a student teacher, which she disliked immensely. In 1897, she found work as an actress with a touring company led by Edmund Tearle, and in 1906 wrote her first play, The Traveller Returns. Also at this time, she  became involved with Emma Pankhurst's Women's Social and Political Union, the leading women's suffrage organization in Britain, and in 1907, Charlotte Despard's Women's Freedom League.

In 1908, the success of her play, Diana of Dobson's (subsequently adapted as a novel), brought her fame, making her an ideal candidate for public speaking. Thus, she became active on the lecture circuits as a popular and well-respected representative of  the women's suffrage movement. That same year, she co-founded the Women Writers' Suffrage League and was instrumental in organizing the Actresses' Franchise League.


At the outbreak of the Great War, she joined the Scottish Women's Hospital Unit, and in 1917 joined the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps. It was from an army tent, within the sound of guns and shells, where she wrote William, an Englishman: "written in a rage in 1918; this extraordinary novel... is a passionate assertion of the futility of war" (Persephone Books). The novel was an immediate success and earned her the Femina-Vie Heureuse prize for 1919.

After the war Cicely Hamilton became a freelance journalist working for newspapers such as the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express. She was also a regular contributor to the feminist journal, Time and Tide where she campaigned for free birth control advice for women and the legalization of abortion. In 1922, she published her final novel, Theodore Savage, though she continued to write plays and non-fiction. She was a friend of EM Delafield and was portrayed in The Provincial Lady Goes Further (1932) as "Emma Hay." She died from heart failure in her London home, following a prolonged illness, on December 5, 1952.

William, an Englishman is the story of William Tully, a "mild-mannered, pale-faced, and under-sized" young insurance clerk turned Social Reformer with "an honest and fiery passion for Justice, Right and Progress." He meets and, on July 23, 1914, marries Griselda Watkins, "his exact counterpart in petticoats; a piece of blank-minded, suburban young-woman-hood caught into the militant suffrage movement and enjoying herself therein."

"Their standard of conduct was rigid and their views were pronounced; those who did not share their views and act in conformity with their standards were outside the pale of their liking. And this not because they were abnormally or essentially uncharitable, but because they had lived for so long less as individuals than as members of organizations - a form of existence which will end by sucking charity out of the sweetest heart alive.

It was well for them, therefore, that their creed, like their code of manners and morals was identical or practically identical. It was a simple creed and they held to it loyally and faithfully. They believed in a large, vague and beautifully undefined identity, called by William the People, and by Griselda, Woman; who in the time to come was to accomplish much beautiful and undefined good; and in whose service they were prepared meanwhile to suffer any amount of obloquy and talk any amount of nonsense. They believed that Society could be straightened and set right by the well-meaning efforts of well-meaning souls like themselves - aided by the Ballot, the Voice of the People, and Woman. They believed, in defiance of the teachings of history, that Democracy is another word for peace and goodwill towards men."

"With regard to what used to be called culture (before August, 1914), the attainments of William and Griselda were very much on a level. They read newspapers written by persons who wholly agreed with their views; they read pamphlets issued, and books recommended, by societies of which they were members. From these they quoted, in public and imposingly, with absolute faith in their statements. Of history and science, of literature and art, they knew nothing, or next to nothing; and, their ignorance being mutual, neither bored the other by straying away from the subjects in which both were interested."

To be perfectly honest, I was ready to toss this book after the first two chapters because William and Griselda annoyed me to no end. However, I decided that since Persephone had declared it "one of the greatest novels about war ever written," I should persevere.


William and Griselda choose an isolated location for their three week honeymoon: a tiny cabin deep in the Belgium Ardennes, entirely shut off from the outside world.  Ironically, the would-be internationalists do not know that war has just been declared.

For a time, all is perfectly blissful, but then they decide that perhaps life is "too peaceful," and that the Cause is calling them back home. They agree on a speedy departure, resolving to leave on the following day. As they set off the next morning, they find the farmhouse of Madame Peys (who had been cooking their meals) abandoned. Slightly disturbed by this, they eventually decide to walk to the nearest village, only to find it occupied by German soldiers. It is then that an English-speaking soldier informs them of the war and they are taken prisoner:

"Neither William nor Griselda had ever entertained the idea of a European War; it was not entertained by any of their friends or their pamplets. Rumors of war they had always regarded as foolish and malicious inventions set afloat in the interests of Capitalism and Conservatism with the object of diverting attention from Social Reform or the settlement of the Woman Question; and to their ears, still filled with the hum of other days, the announcement of Heinz was even such a foolish invention. Nor, even had they given him credence, would they in these first inexperienced moments have been greatly perturbed or alarmed; their historical ignorance was so profound, they had talked so long and so often in terms of war, that they had come to look on the strife of nations as a glorified scuffle on the lines of a Pankhurst demonstration."

The novel continues with their subsequent confrontation of the brutal realities of war, but I won't go into further detail for fear of spoiling the story. I must say that, in the end, I loved this book, and actually found myself feeling enormously sympathetic for William and Griselda. It has remained with me in a way that very few books do, and given me much to think about.

The book is available from Persephone Books, or in the public domain via Google Books. More information about the Battle of the Ardennes, which was fought between August 21-23, 1914 can be found here.


It was quite interesting to me that the book seemed to criticize or polk fun at many aspects of a cause which formerly was a central part of Cicely Hamilton's life. However, on closer examination, I realized how deeply she identified with the plight of William and Griselda and how this book, "written in a rage," reflected her own anger and disullionment. That involvement in the war caused her significant distress is apparent in much of her writing.

"Those who struggled hardest against the acceptance of the War-Fact of 1914 were, naturally enough, those who had fiery little battles of their own to fight, and whose own warfare was suddenly rendered null and incompetent by a sudden diversion of energy and interest in the face of the national danger. The war was the successful rival of their own, sectional strife, overshadowing its importance and sucking the life from its veins." (William, an Englishman)

She responded to the 1918 Representation of the People Act (allowing British women the right to vote) with a sense of disinterested fatigue. In Life Errant, her 1935 autobiography, she wrote:

"What use was the vote as a weapon against German guns, submarines and Gothas? The problem of the moment was to keep ourselves alive, and while a people engaged in a life-and-death struggle, it is apt to lose interest in matters which yesterday were of sufficient importance to raise it to a fury of dispute...I remember - how well I remember - receiving official intimation that my name had been placed on the register of the Chelsea electorate. I was in Abbeville at the time, and, as the post arrived, a battery of Archies began to thud; an enemy aeroplane was over taking photographs. I remember thinking, as I read the notice, of all that suffrage had meant for us, a year or two before! ...and that now, at this moment of achieved enfranchisement, what really interested me was not the thought of voting at the next election, but the puffs of smoke that the Archies sent after the escaping planes."  (Suffrage Discourse in Britain During the First World War by Angela K. Smith)

Despite the fact that I'm currently reading a whopping five books at present, I recently felt the need to find some good new fiction, since all of my current reads are non-fiction. First, I browsed the catalogs at both Persephone Books and Virago Press for inspiration (this Virago Collection Tracker spreadsheet from LibraryThing members was also enormously helpful). Then, because I primarily wanted eBooks for my Kindle and Nook, I searched the Web to find out which books were also available in the public domain.

Unfortunately, I also ended up ordering a stack of books from both Amazon (At Mrs. Lippincote's, Consequences, Gone to Earth, The Edwardians, Mariana, and Nella Last's three WWII diaries) and Amazon UK (Miss Buncle's Book, Few Eggs and No Oranges, The Carlyles at Home, Lady Rose and Mrs. Memmary)! My husband will not be pleased.

Any of the Google Books/ePub files below can be converted to Kindle-compatible .Mobi files using the quick, easy and free eBook management software from Calibre.

Persephone Books

• William, an Englishman by Cicely Hamilton (Persephone - Google Books)
• Fidelity by Susan Glaspell (Persephone - Google Books)
• Consequences by E.M. Delafield (Persephone - Google Books)
• Reuben Sachs by Amy Levy (Persephone - Google Books)
• The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett (Persephone - Google Books)
• The Winds of Heaven by Monica Dickens (Persephone - Internet Archive)
• The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett (Persephone - Google Books)
• Round about a Pound a Week by Maud Pember Reeves (Persephone - Internet Archive)
• A New System of Domestic Cookery by Mrs. Rundell (Persephone - Google Books)

Virago Modern Classics

• Marriage (1818) by Susan Ferrier (About - Internet Archive)
• Deerbrook (1839) by Harriet Martineau (About - Internet Archive)
• The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner (About - Google Books)
• The Lifted Veil by George Eliot (About - Google Books)
• The Persimmon Tree and Other Stories by Marjorie Barnard (About - Internet Archive)
• The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Virago - Internet Archive - Google Books)
• South Riding: A Novel (1936) by Winifred Holtby* (About)
• The Little Ottleys (Omibus): Love's Shadow, Tenterhooks, Love at Second Sight by Ada Leverson (About)
• A Diary Without Dates (1918) by Enid Bagnold (Virago Nonfiction; About - Many Books)
• The Happy Foreigner (1920) by Enid Bagnold (About - Many Books)
• The Squire* (1938) by Enid Bagnold (About - Internet Archive)
• The Three Miss Kings by Ada Cambridge (About - Google Books)
• Joanna Godden by Sheila Kaye-Smith (About - Google Books)
• Susan Spray* by Sheila Kaye-Smith (About - Internet Archive)
• The Reef by Edith Wharton (About - Internet Archive)
• The Clever Woman of the Family by Charlotte M. Yonge (About - Google Books)
• Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim (Virago - Google Books)
• The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim (Virago - Kindle Edition)
• The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim (Virago - Kindle Edition)
• The Caravaners by Elizabeth von Arnim (About - Internet Archive)
• My Antonia by Willa Cather (About - Internet Archive)
• The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather (About - Internet Archive)
• The Robber Bridegroom (1942) by Eudora Welty (About - Internet Archive)
• The Third Miss Symons (Virago - Kindle Edition)
• Mary Olivier: A Life by May Sinclair (Virago - Google Books)
• The Life and Death of Harriet Frean by May Sinclair (About - Google Books)
• The Three Sisters by May Sinclair (About - Internet Archive)
• Red Pottage (1900) by Mary Cholmondeley (About)
• Gone to Earth by Mary Webb (Virago - Google Books)
• The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West (Virago)
• The Judge by Rebecca West (About) 
• Open the Door! by Catherine Carswell (About - Internet Archive)
• An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw (About - Internet Archive)
• Ann Veronica: A Modern Love Story by H.G. Wells (About - Internet Archive)
• Diana of the Crossways by George Meredith (About - Google Books)
• My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin (About - Internet Archive)
• The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson (About - Google Books)
• Maurice Guest by Henry Handel Richardson (About - Google Books)
• The Odd Women: Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3 by George Gissing (About)
• Virginia by Ellen Glasgow (About - Google Books)
• The Semi-Attached Couple, and The Semi-Detached House by Emily Eden (About)
• Pilgrimage 1, Pointed Roofs by Dorothy M. Richardson (About - Google Books)
• Pilgrimage 2,Backwater by Dorothy M. Richardson (About - Google Books)
• Pilgrimage 3, Honeycomb by Dorothy M. Richardson (About - Internet Archive)
• Pilgrimage 4, The Tunnel by Dorothy M. Richardson (About - Google Books)
• The Beth Book (1897) by Sarah Grand (About - Google Books)

Other

• Belinda (1801) by Maria Edgeworth (About)
• Evelina (1778) by Fanny Burney (About)
• Camilla (1796) by Fanny Burney (About)
• Emily Fox-Seton by Frances Hodgson Burnett (This includes The Making of a Marchioness, above, and its sequel)
• The Minor Pleasures of Life (1934) by Rose Macaulay
• False Goddesses (1923) by Rachel Ferguson
• The Glory of the Conquered (The Story of a Great Love) (1909) by Susan Glaspell
• The Visioning (1911) by Susan Glaspell
• High Rising (1951) by Angela Thirkell (About)
• Fletchers End (1962) by D.E. Stevenson*
• The Happy Highways (1920) by Storm Jameson
• In the Second Year: Radical Fictions (1936) by Storm Jameson (About)
• Christine (1917) by Elizabeth von Arnim
• Vera (1921) by Elizabeth von Arnim
• The Nightingales Are Singing (1953) by Monica Dickens
• The Rosary (1909) by Florence Barclay
• The White Ladies of Worcester: A Romance of the 12th Century (1917) by Florence Barclay
• Miss Marjoribanks (1866) by Mrs. Oliphant (About)
• The War Workers (1918) by E.M. Delafield
• Mary Olivier: A Life (1919) by May Sinclair (About)
• Tension (1920) by E.M. Delafield
• The Heel of Achilles (1920) by E.M. Delafield
• Humbug (1921) by E.M. Delafield
• Messalina of the Suburbs (1928) by E.M. Delafield
• Road Through the Woods (1961) by Pamela Frankau
• Collision (1913) by Mary Borden
• The Romantic Woman (1916) by Mary Borden
• The Tortoise (1921) by Mary Borden
• Jane - Our Stranger (1923) by Mary Borden
• The Amazing Interlude (1918) by Mary Roberts Rinehart
• The Garden Party and Other Stories (1922) by Katherine Mansfield
• Gigolo (1922): Short stories by Edna Ferber
• Lady Rose's Daughter by Mrs. Humphrey Ward: "The best-selling novel of 1903."
• The Milky Way (1914) by F. Tennyson Jesse 
• The Happy Bride (1920) by F. Tennyson Jesse 
• The Long Day (The Story of a New York Working Girl, As Told by Herself) (1905) by Dorothy M. Richardson (About)
• Pilgrimage 5, Interim (1920) by Dorothy M. Richardson
• Pilgrimage 6, Deadlock (1921) by Dorothy M. Richardson

*To borrow only, from Open Library

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

• 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

I seriously need to step *away* from the computer tonight because I keep finding ways to spend money, yikes! My newest discovery was this gorgeous Enid Blyton Nature Lover's Book. A peek inside the book can be found at The Blueberry Patch.

While I'm not personally familiar with Enid Blyton's work, I've heard so much about her, both good and bad. Naturally, out of sheer curiosity, I then also had to order a "Best of Blyton" boxed set (at a great price!). Since we're studying British children's literature this year, I think I can kind of justify this.

This afternoon, while browsing The Well-Trained Mind Forums, I stumbled across a downright *thrilling* discovery. In an old thread, I found a link to this Wired Magazine article about custom-printing public domain books. Now, I'm an avid Google Books user, but *hate* reading books online (as do my kids). I also dislike printing everything out as it results in significant paper/toner usage and just isn't quite as nice as having the actual book in hand. Unfortunately, many of the public domain books that I love are either impossible to find, or prohibitively expensive.

The Espresso Book Machine will turn a digital copy into a library-quality, perfect bound book in just minutes (how magical is that?!), but unfortunately, only a handful of book stores in the U.S. own the machine. Even more distressing is the lack of a shipping option offered. Finally however, I found this: the Harvard Book Store will print and ship books! And better yet, their search system appears to tie into Google Books directly. This really is, in my mind, completely revolutionary and opens a whole new world of possibilities for homeschoolers!
After quick deliberation, I ordered copies of the following (at a mere $8/apiece):

• Handbook Of Nature Study: For Teachers And Pupils In Elementary Schools by Dietrich Lange
• Nature Study in Elementary Schools: A Manual for Teachers by Lucy Langdon Williams Wilson
• In the Child's World: Morning Talks for Kindergartens, Primary Schools and Home by Emilie Poulsson (I adore this book and refer to it often!)
• Nature in Verse: A Poetry Reader for Children by Mary Isabella Lovejoy
• The Child's Fairy Geography, Or, A Merry Trip Round Europe by Forbes Edward Winslow (absolutely delightful and quite informative!)
• Legends of the Middle Ages: Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art by Hélène Adeline Guerber
• Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages by Edward Lewes Cutts (contains some good information not readily available elsewhere)

Already I'm making a list of the books that I'll need to order next (a few, in particular, that I forgot to order today!):

• Sharp Eyes: A Rambler's Calendar of Fifty-Two Weeks Among Insects, Birds, and Flowers by William Hamilton Gibson (referred to often by Emilie Poulsson in the above volume)
• The Book of Nature Myths by Florence Holbrook
• The Fairy Land of Flowers: A Popular Illustrated Botany for the Home and School by Mara Louise Pratt-Chadwick
• The Stories of My Four Friends by Jane Andrews (The "Four Friends" are the four seasons)
• Types of Children's Literature: A Collection of the World's Best Literature for Children by Walter Barnes (a fairly useful anthology)
• Merrie England: Travels, Tales and Historical Sketches and Bonnie Scotland: Tales of Her History, Heroes and Poets by Grace Greenwood (excellent!)
• Chaucer for Schools by Mrs. H.R. Haweis (also excellent!)
• Stories from Old English Poetry by Abby Sage Richardson
• Old Ballads in Prose by Eva March Tappan
• The Open Road: A Little Book for Wayfarers and The Friendly Town: A Little Book for the Urbane by Edward Verrall Lucas
• A Book of Golden Deeds of All Times and All Lands by Charlotte M. Yonge
• English Fairy Tales and More English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs
• Ethics for Young People by Charles Carroll Everett ("A dry subject attractively treated")