Although I like to have some sort of reading plan, I quickly get off track as one book always leads to another. I've started reading a very unusual novel. I had heard about it before, but I was recently reminded that I wanted to find a copy. Since there is no way I am going to pay upwards of $50-60 for a used copy of Rachel Ferguson's The Brontes Went to Woolworths, I resorted to my oft-used and very reliable ILL department to find a copy I can at least read, if not own. I'll still be watching for a copy (and if anyone happens upon any less expensive copies anywhere, I'd be appreciative to be pointed in the right direction). No doubt I'll happen upon a copy when I'm not looking for one.
I've only read the first few chapters, but it is incredibly eccentric and highly imaginative. I may have to reread it in order to sort out what's real and what's fantasy.
"The Carne girls--Diedre, Katrine, and Sheil--live with their mother and Sheil's governess. Dierdre is a journalist. She once declined a proposal of marriage, being in love with Sherlock Holmes at the time. Katrine is at dramatic school, elocuting Shakespearian indecencies. They live like other middle-class London families in the 1920s, except that mealtimes are attended by a cloud of witnesses. There's Ironface the doll who converses in French; the pierrot Dion Saffyn; Pipson, a music-hall comic, and a ballet troupe, 'The Kensington Palace Girls'. And Judge Toddington, with his jam-tart yawn and small pomposities, is quite the most delectable thing. Then one day Diedre goes to a charity bazaar, to be opened by none other than Lady Mildred, Toddy's real-life wife..."
A little strange, eh? I'm saving the introduction by A.S. Byatt for later, but I did have to take a little peek at what she wrote about it. She said she read it "when I was far too young--or just the right age", which I got a kick out of. She calls it whimsical and fey, "but that doesn't seem to matter too badly". I'll let you know how it turns out. And don't you love the cover?
So, when I said one book leads to another...when I read about the Ferguson book, another tempting title was mentioned that I was lucky enough to find on the shelves at work. The Feminine Middlebrow Novel, 1920s to 1950s: Class, Domesticity, and Bohemianism by Nicola Humble looks chalk full of interesting information, much along the lines of Nicola Beauman's A Very Great Profession: The Woman's Novel, 1914-39. Rachel Ferguson is mentioned in both books. I've started on the introduction and it makes for fascinating reading. I even relish reading the footnotes, if that tells you anything, and I need to keep pen and paper handy for more reading ideas (while reading both books!).
I also spotted on the shelf a two-volume set edited by Harold Bloom, British Women Fiction Writers: 1900-1960. This may or may not prove to be useful. He covers only a handful of authors. Each section starts with a short biography, and includes a bibliography. The main purpose of the book is to give excerpts of literary criticism on each author's work. It might serve as a nice jumping off place if I find something especially informative. I can always go and look for the original source of criticism. I'm particularly interested in the sections on Daphne du Maurier and Elizabeth Taylor, though all the authors sound interesting. Can I mention one more resource I recently discovered? (Yes, I've been busy...just how many books can I read at once...?). Elaine Showalter's A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing. Apparently the founders of Virago Press were guided by this hugely influential text. Not a single one of these books are mine, but I want to own them all, of course. There is all sorts of books on this period of women's writing in terms of British authors, but I wonder what their American counterparts were up to? I'm a bit one-sided in my reading, but there doesn't seem to be the same sort of effort made over here when it comes to women authors from that period. Or am I just not looking in the right places. Perhaps that will be my next big project.