I never really realized how much a book's cover illustration and jacket description makes an impression on me. I know you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but you can still glean all sorts of things about its contents (accurate or not) by what you see and read on the outside. So what happens when you get a book published in the 1920s, with no jacket, and no description (or very little)? I really enjoyed reading Mollie Panter-Downes's One Fine Day, and had to look for her other novels. She only published a few, and it seemed easiest to just borrow them via my library's ILL service. So now I have two. One has no description at all and the other just the vaguest. Strangely, it's the tiniest bit disorienting. I don't have a lot of experience just reading an author without knowing about the contents of their books. But that's sort of what's happening now.
The Storm Bird was published in 1930 by G.P. Putnam's Sons and all I can tell you (I've only read the first three or so pages) is it seems to be about a man who's been recently widowed. The title page has a quote by Swinburne, "...the storm birds of passion, that ruffle Wild wings in a wind of desire". Hmm. Any guesses on what the plot of this one will look like? I've set this one temporarily aside, since I have a copy of The Shoreless Sea as well (and I can't renew it, so I need to read it first). This one came from one of California's university libraries, but it was previously owned by 'The Booklovers Library of Los Angeles--Established 1892' according to the plate inserted in the back of the book. The description it gives (someone was kind enough to type in this information on the plate...thank you): Time-1921-4, Place-England, Gen'l Character-Triangle Romance, Subject Matter-Romantic adventures of a young girl, who marries to escape her unhappy home-environment: and afterwards, renews an intercepted passion of her earlier youth. I love looking at these old books and imagining who might have read it and when. This was published in 1924 also by G.P. Putnam's Sons. It's in a very fragile condition and I'm amazed that it was loaned out to us (and probably why they won't allow it to be renewed). This book also has not one but two quotes, "Fate is a sea without a shore," also by Swinburne (I like that). And from The Song of Solomon, "Many waters cannot quench Love, neither can the floods drown it...For Love is strong as Death--". I know where we're headed with this one, however.
The nice thing about Virago Modern Classics (which is the edition I have for One Fine Day) is the wonderful introductions they include. My curiosity was piqued when I read:
"Mollie Panter-Downes's first novel, The Shoreless Sea, was published by John Murray when she was just seventeen and went into eight editions in the course of a year and a half, helped, no doubt, by the Daily Mirror's purchase of second serial rights and the slogan on the side of London Buses saying 'read The Shoreless Sea'. (The writer Elizabeth Jenkins who was then eighteen remembers 'devouring' the instalments as they appeared). Even today the novel has quite enough distinction to set it apart from the conventional love story, its tone and attitudes(though not its theme) being more than a little reminiscent of Rosamund Lehmann's The Dusty Answer which was published four years later." (1985)
I plan on reading Rosamund Lehmann's The Dusty Answer when I finish Elizabeth von Arnim's The Enchanted April. The thing with reading Viragos is I read an author and love the book and then want to read all their books. Or I read a book and the introduction mentions another book or author and then I have to read that! So many of these older Viragos were books published originally in the 20s and 30s it seems or one author was an influence on another author from a later generation that they all fit so well together. Since I'm curious about this period, one book quickly leads to the next!
As for The Shoreless Sea, I'm reading it very carefully (fearful the pages are going to come detached from the spine), but I've gotten about 50 pages in. While I don't think it's as well done as One Fine Day, I'm still very impressed that it is a first novel by a seventeen-year-old woman (and am enjoying it nonetheless)! It will be interesting to see how it anticipates Lehmann's later novel, and then how many novels did Rosamund Lehmann write? I'll be curious about all her books as well. It's only a pity that so many of these books are out of print and hard to find. I can't say this enough, but thank heavens for libraries and even more so for ILL!