Elizabeth Taylor Centenary: General Discussion

July 3, 2012 marks the centenary of Elizabeth Taylor's birth. We will have a year-long celebration, with monthly reads chosen by the group. We had some discussion of how things would work on this thread.

Update 10 January 2012
We have decided to read all 12 of Taylor's novels in order of publication.
Here's the plan based on your input:
- Polls will be run quarterly, to choose 3 books for the upcoming quarter.
- The polls will be organized such that we read Taylor's work chronologically. The first poll will be limited to her earliest work. Each successive poll will include later works.

- We will read and discuss one book per month. Of course you may read books in advance, and return later for the discussion.

Threads will be organized as follows:
- General Discussion (this thread)
- Book Selection (to announce polls and results)
- Monthly Reads

We could even have a "virtual party" on her birthday!

The VMC Group Wiki will include links to all of these threads for easy reference.

Let the fun begin!

Complete List of Elizabeth Taylor's novels, in order of publication:

At Mrs. Lippincote’s (1945)
Palladian (1946)
A View of the Harbour (1947)
A Wreath of Roses (1949)
A Game of Hide and Seek (1951)
The Sleeping Beauty (1953)
Angel (1957)
In a Summer Season (1961)
The Soul of Kindness (1964)
The Wedding Group (1968)
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (1971)
Blaming (1976)

Elizabeth Taylor's short stories:
Hester Lilly (1954)
The Blush and Other Stories (1958)
A Dedicated Man and Other Stories (1965)
The Devastating Boys (1972)
Dangerous Calm (1995)

#2 I thinka couple of the touchstones are a bit wonky so I've listed the correct ones:

The Sleeping Beauty
Angel

>3: Thanks Heather! I've corrected post #2 as well.

We are currently voting on our first quarter reads. Visit the Book Selection thread for details and a link to the poll, which will remain open until November 30.

Oh, goodie. I've read three of Taylor's books, and have several more, including the first three published, which seem to be strong favorites in the polling so far. This will be fun.

I love the idea of this - I have read a few Elizabeth Taylor's and really enjoyed them, I currently have another TBR which I will save in case it gets picked.

The results of the first book selection poll are in. We'll be reading Taylor's first three novels, in order of publication:

January: At Mrs. Lippincote’s (1945)
February: Palladian (1946)
March: A View of the Harbour (1947)

I'll create discussion threads on the first of each month, and include links to those threads on our group wiki.

Meanwhile, let's get reading !!!

Yea!~!~!

Excellent!

Lovely! I even have all of these, great.

I just ordered copies of At Mrs Lippincote's and Palladian for starters. Bookdepository in the UK have about 1/3 off (although I don't know if the BD price still depends on your location).

Happy New Year and welcome to our year of reading Elizabeth Taylor. In January we will read her debut novel, At Mrs Lippincote's. The thread is up, here.

Based on our first book selection poll, it appears there may be a preference for reading Taylor's work in order of publication. Conveniently, she wrote 12 novels, so we could just read them all in order from January to December. However this does overlook her short stories -- don't know how everyone feels about that.

So, let's start with a mini poll to get the sense of the group:
Comments & discussion welcome!

Have voted!

I will joining you for the group reads in February. I have all Taylor's novels except two but one of those two is At Mrs Lippincote's, unfortunately.

I've started At Mrs. Lippincote's, but I don't know if I'll get through all 12 -- I've read two or three already.

I have voted - though having read 6 of her novels already in only the last 3 years, so may choose to join in discussions but not re-read them at this stage - although they are so wonderful I may change my mind.

Have voted. Thanks for sorting this!

Just put my vote in. And I am in for the twelve. A good/great book/author is always deserving of a re-read.
Thanks for setting us up.

I just read on Lynne Hatwell's blog (dovegreyreader) that she has been invited to attend this......

Elizabeth Taylor (1912-1975): a Centenary Conference
Cambridge, UK - 7 July 2012
Deadline for proposals: 8 December 2011

Abstracts are invited on any aspect of the writing of the novelist Elizabeth Taylor.These should be about 250 words and sent in the form of an e-mail attachment to arrive by December 8 2011. The conference will be held at Anglia Ruskin’' Cambridge campus.

Participants include John Brannigan, Erica Brown, Alice Ferrebe, Maud Ellmann, Faith Pullin, N. H. Reeve.

The plenary speaker is Nicola Beauman.

Papers will be of 20 minutes duration.
The convenor is happy to talk informally to or correspond with anyone who may be considering submitting a proposal. Please include your postal address and daytime telephone number. Ph. D students are also asked to give the title of their dissertation and the name and e-mail address of their supervisor.

Convenor: Professor Mary Joannou, Anglia Ruskin University
E-mail: . Tel: 0845 196 2049
(posted 11 October 2011)

Lynne is in fact the reason we are having our Centenary celebration! Her blog was the first to alert me to the event and get me thinking about how we could recognize it in this group. I hope someone from the group can attend the conference, it would be so interesting to hear about it!

Oh - thank you for the alert Cate and Laura. I will try and get a ticket. I went to a conference at which Lynne spoke in Oxford about three years ago and it was great fun! This Cambridge 'do' sounds a lot more serious.

Are we expecting a Viragoite to be presenting alongside Lynne and Nicola Beauman?

This was in the NYRB Classics Tumblr today: A Very Angel New Year, "Elizabeth Taylor's take on the post-holiday blues."

Angel was the first Elizabeth Taylor I read. I take it NYRB Classics is reprinting it?

It's being released on Valentine's Day in a new NYRB edition. I have to admit that it's my least favorite of the Elizabeth Taylors I've read.

So can I ask? Are we going to be reading all of Elizabeth Taylors novels only - or will we be reading short stories too. I only ask because I have a lovely copy of The Blush sitting here - and I wasn't sure if I need to save it for a particular month.

Looks like Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont is set for November then? I'm trying to read as much of my TBR pile as possible, and I own that one.

Based on the vote in message #14, it looks like we will be reading Taylor's novels in order of publication.
>26: so you don't need to save The Blush
>27: and yes, we'll read that one in November!

Great! I'll join everyone in November for Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont.

That sounds good to me. I don't own any of the short story collections, but have about 6 of the novels so will look forward to reading and discussing those.

I was only missing a couple of her novels, so this gave me the "justification" to buy them!

Here's a question for you:

I've blogged about this centenary a couple of times, and some of the reader comments got me thinking about how the event could be opened up beyond LibraryThing.

Facebook is a possibility -- specifically, a Facebook page focused on Virago Modern Classics in general. All sorts of reading events could be hosted / promoted there: the Taylor Centenary, Virago Reading Week, All Virago/All August, etc.. People could post links to their reviews / blog posts about Viragos, upload photos or other links, and start conversation. There's a dormant FB group out there but I have no idea who administers it and would be inclined to start fresh.

The Elizabeth Taylor Centenary could also take place in the blogosphere and be actively sponsored by a few bloggers, perhaps in turns for each novel.

I'm curious what you all think and any other ideas you have.

20 - Thanks for the info about the conference - I might well try to go along. I gave my first paper at a middlebrow conference last year, and Erica Brown was one of the people there - she spoke on Elizabeth von Arnim's Christopher and Columbus and was generally nice :)

32 - Laura, I love your ideas!

#32 Laura, I think you should start a new Virago FB group. I'm on FB more than LT these days, and have fallen impossibly behind on most of these threads. I might be in touch more on FB.

Laura, I started that group on FB yonks ago, and it looks like reviving it is easy. The other admin is a 'Simon Jones' from London. Is this our SIAB Simon!!?? Anyway, I'd love to see it active again (last post was in 2010) so, please, feel free to add yourself as admin and admin away!

>35: Cate, FB has made some changes since that group was created and I think a "page" would work better than a "group" in their current model. Given the encouragement here I'm going to create a new FB page. In addition to inviting people to "like" the page, I will post a message on the old group directing people to the page.

Thanks all ...

Go to it, Laura! I continue to prefer the LT environment to any other on-line, but I'm all in favor of spreading the word. Just point me to it when you've done it.

Thanks, Laura. I was the second person to "like" the page!

what Linda said.............

I much prefer the LT environment to Facebook -- I only check into Facebook now and then to see what's happening to younger family members.

Jane (#40), you mean you're not checking it every day to see pictures of what I've cooked for dinner? You're obviously not using it properly!:-)

I just discovered this thread and quiet at random I picked up At Mrs. Lippincote's to read on my commute Monday morning. I just finished it tonight. What a splendid and terrifying book. I also found your page Laura and have liked it. I am glad I finally caught up to someone's group read and look forward to chatting about it.

I don't know if I'll make it through all of them this year but it would be fun to try!

I too spend more time on LT than FB, but I will keep checking in on the VMC page to see what's going on. It's a great idea.

My copy of At Mrs Lippincote's finally arrived yesterday, so I can stop studiously ignoring the thread and join in soon!

No - that's not our Simon. Would be interested in sponsoring a post on one of my two blogs!

I may be getting a little ahead of myself, but could we designate Tuesday 3rd July as Elizabeth Taylor Day? Or even go for a week ...

That would give us enough time to organise ourselves so that we can cover every book, and as many angles as we can think of.

Possibly we might be able to persuade Virago to provide some books for giveaways.

And I'd love a guest post from anyone who doesn't blog ...

>45: hurray! I've made a note of that Verity and will be in touch
>46: ooh, some very good ideas there Fleur. I'll start a new thread to discuss birthday celebrations. And the guest post idea is a good one, too!

~40 and 41 Rob - your food pics are so tempting - not to mention all the other very interesting stuff .... or your mass updates!! I love being able to enjoy the pics of the children as well !

Anyway - I do agree with the view that FB is for me a secondary social place - this is my bookish home without a doubt! However, in terms of raising the profile of quality reading FB certainly needs bookish groups like ours!

I have a Facebook account but rarely visit it. I too prefer LT.

I just finished my 3rd Orange of the month so I think I will break away now and begin Elizabeth Taylor's At Mrs Lippincote's. I love her writing so I can't wait to get cuddled down in bed and start. Good night.

Elizabeth Taylor's Complete Short Stories (Virago Modern Classics) is scheduled for publication as a VMC on 21 June 2012.

That goes on my list, for sure!

I have just had a look throughthe Radio Times and noticed that the film version of Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont is being shown on BBC2 at 1.50pm today. I shan't be able to watch it that time but have programmed my box to record it.

This is just for information, not a recommendation!

>53: I've seen it. Joan Plowright stars as Mrs P. It stays fairly true to the book and is a sweet film overall.

If you're a blogger you might be interested in this opportunity to host monthly reads on your blog. Please let me know if you'd like to host a month!

I am ready for February now. A nice green copy of Palladian arrived today - looking forward to reading it.

Aha, me too as I received a notice saying that my library copy was ready for collection :))

Hooray!

I think I might join you all in reading Palladian next month, as I received a copy for Christmas...

I'm looking forward to joining in with the Palladian read too. My copy is a new VMC but is actually rather nice so I am not too jealous of those of you with greens!

I had a hardback ex library copy but decided to buy the new VMC edition as I enjoyed At Mrs Lippincotes and this was relatively affordable.

I can't believe that Virago has 3 different editions of AML - with an autobiographical piece by ET herself, an intro by Tim Waterstone or in the newest edition by Valerie Martin.

At least they're doing intros for these ones, I'm quite disappointed that apart from South Riding the new editions don't even include the introductions for the green ones, don't understand why not.

I've picked up my library copy, so I'm ready too.

I have one, and I'm ready three.

I'm so excited to see so much interest in Palladian, it's a lovely book.

I plan to read it too. I'll get in one more Orange title in January, and a bit more of Our Mutual Friend, then Palladian will probably be the first thing I pick up in February.

I am set and ready to go as well. Looking forward to it. Like Linda, I am still caught up in my Orange reads.

A lovely post by Rachel at Book Snob on our Elizabeth Taylor Centenary Read.

Thank you, Rachel!!

Pssst ... you heard it here first!

Our centenary celebration will include prizes!! I'll be giving away a copy of The Other Elizabeth Taylor, and I'm in discussions with Virago about the new volume of her Complete Short Stories, slated for publication June 21. Description and pretty dust jacket picture here.

Oh...exciting!

Very! And fun too!