Elizabeth Goudge (1900–1984)

4.5 stars! If you want to see where C.S. Lewis got his writing style for the Chronicles of Narnia, along with plenty of ideas for tone, characters, and scenes, this is the book to read. What is super frustrating and disappointing to me is that Lewis never credits Elizabeth Goudge for being his inspiration. As a matter of fact, she actually credits him as being an influence on her, despite writing The Little White Horse first! This was published in 1946, and Lewis didn’t publish The Lion, show more The Witch, and the Wardrobe until 1950. I suspect Lewis read this book, patterned his own writing style after Goudge’s, and then never gave her any credit (that I can find, and I searched long and hard for a mention of her anywhere, even in passing).

But when, as a reader, you encounter the internalized misogyny that Goudge peppers throughout the plot of The Little White Horse, you start to get a clearer picture of what might be going on here. I think Goudge is deferring to Lewis because he’s a man. She allowed him to take all the credit, and sold herself short. I wish I could go back in time and tell her that she’s worth far more than that! (And also tell her how annoying the misogyny in this book is, and request that she make a few edits.)

Problematic aspects aside, this story has so many delightful things in it. It reminded me a little of The Secret Garden. It’s truly a wish fulfillment sort of tale, with plenty of things children long for. A brave heroine, a castle-like manor, a tiny tower room with a door only a child can fit through, one’s very own pony, a whole host of other friendly and magnificent animals, delicious food descriptions, interesting characters with complex backstories, and the list goes on! Imagine the best dream you had as a child, convert it to story form, and you’d get this book.

Goudge also laboriously and lovingly describes everything. While this may seem a little tedious to an adult reader, I’ve found that kids love this quality in a bedtime story because it allows them to get a clear picture of everything, regardless of how strong their imaginative muscles may or may not be. Any kid, even nowadays, would be super into this book if it was read aloud to them.

Were I to have read this book as a child, it would’ve definitely been a favorite! I would say that it’s definitely worth reading. Just be ready to have some conversations about misogyny if you read it to your kids. For those wondering how much misogyny is present, I would say it’s about on the same level as The Chronicles of Narnia, perhaps a smidge more. And much like Narnia, there is an emphasis on Christianity within the story, so that’s important to know going in, too. show less

When orphaned young Maria Merryweather arrives at Moonacre Manor, she feels as if she's entered Paradise. Her new guardian, her uncle Sir Benjamin, is kind and funny; the Manor itself feels like home right away; and every person and animal she meets is like an old friend. But there is something incredibly sad beneath all of this beauty and comfort--a tragedy that happened years ago, shadowing Moonacre Manor and the town around it--and Maria is determined to learn about it, change it, and show more give her own life story a happy ending. But what can one solitary girl do? show less

It is Christmas Eve in an English seaport town, and orphaned young Polly Flowerdew longs to leave one of the doors of her Aunt Constantia and Aunt Dorcas' house unlocked, in case the Wise Men decide to visit. Her maiden aunts are shocked - with no man in the house (only THE HAT), who will protect them? Although they love their vivacious young niece, and are in many ways indulgent of her, they do not totally understand her, or know what to make of her arguments. In the end, sly Polly has her show more way, and three men do indeed visit in the night. The strange gentleman, who turns out to be her long-lost Uncle Tom; Polly's friend, the cat-loving Frenchman, who had recently lost his wife and daughter in the Terror of the French Revolution; and the old beggar "Rags-and-Bones," come to make his final call - this unlikely trio of Wise Men do indeed bring gifts. And when dawn comes, and Christmas Day arrives, three ships arrive in the harbor, one of them bringing a lady and child...

A beautiful, beautiful book, by turns poignant and amusing, with quirky but lovable characters, and a strong undercurrent of deeper meaning, I Saw Three Ships is a Christmas masterpiece! The classic Christmas carol, which gives the book its name, runs like a stream throughout the story, with various verses utilized at key moments, to draw out the themes of the tale. There is a sense of enchantment here, but not in any fantastical sense. It is the ineffable enchantment of the sacred, evoking that feeling of standing at once in two worlds - the world of an early 19th-century English seaside town, and the world of Christmas miracles, in which the Wise Men might indeed visit, and three ships might indeed come sailing in, bringing great blessing and joy with them. That sense of duality, of simultaneously inhabiting the physical world (marvelously and humorously described) and the world of the spirit (beautifully and poignantly evoked), makes this a truly outstanding work - one of Elizabeth Goudge's best!

This is a wonderfully written and descriptive book, with passages that made me stop and reread, sometimes chuckling, sometimes sighing with happy sadness. Consider this description of the Frenchman:

"When he was not kneeling in the old church by the harbor, saying Popish Latin prayers at the top of his high cracked voice and telling his Popish beads to the scandal of all good Protestants going in and out to polish the brass or beat the dust out of the hassocks, he was striding up and down the steep streets of the little town followed by all the cats of the neighborhood, who adored him not only for the fish heads he kept wrapped in newspaper in his pockets for them but for some quality in himself which appealed to their sense of breeding."

What flavor there is here! How one gets a sense of the little seaside town, with its parochial wariness of this outsider, with his "Popish" (AKA Catholic) ways. What a sense one gets of the outsider himself, deranged by his loss, and yet somehow still noble. And the cats! The cats who follow him - surely a sign of his good qualities!

I have had the pleasure of reading I Saw Three Ships on more than one occasion, although this is the first time I have reviewed it. My first reading was of the original British edition, illustrated by Richard Kennedy, whose artwork I found appealing, but not particularly memorable. This reading however, was of the American edition, with the artwork of Margot Tomes, and the visuals made the reading experience something extraordinary. I loved the story on both readings, but I greatly preferred the artwork here, which exactly fit the story, to my thinking. This is a book I would highly recommend, to anyone looking for beautifully written and beautifully illustrated Christmas stories. show less

So many of my friends seem to have read and loved this book, that when I first chucked it on Mt. TBR, I wrote: "All right, all right, enough already! Everyone seems to love this, and I trust Sherri, Bunny, Lisa, Jackie, Felicity, Melody, Emily, and Constance!" How right I was to trust these wonderful literary guides!

Linnets and Valerians is one of those books that would have been a five-star favorite, if I had encountered it as a child, and I have no doubt that I would have revisited it show more perennially, along with such beloved classics as Little Women and The Secret Garden. It is the story of the four Linnets siblings - Nan, Robert, Timothy and Betsy - who, in the course of running away from their grandmother's house, inadvertently find their way to their Uncle Ambrose's home in High Barton. Here they stay, cared for by their stern but loving uncle and his good-fairy factotum, Ezra Oakes.

Between the classical education their uncle is determined to give them, their adventures in the nearby woods beneath Lion Tor, their confrontations with the local witch, Emma Cobley, and their role in solving the mystery surrounding the reclusive Lady Alicia Valerian and her missing husband and son, the children find their new lives exciting and eventful. Goudge is an engaging storyteller, and an accomplished writer, with a perceptive appreciation for the child's view of the world, and an ability to paint an immensely appealing scene. Her description of the kitchen at Uncle Ambrose's house, with the cats sleeping in the sink, and the dishes on the table, made me feel as if I were right there. Her many references to the world and literature of classical antiquity - Hector the owl, Andromache the cat, the Great God Pan - thrilled the Classicist in me. Finally, the significance of the bees - their role as protectors and guides - has made me very curious about the folklore surrounding these creatures, and curious to learn more.

All in all, this was a fantastic book, and might - but for one thing - have won one of my rare five-star ratings. But the sad truth is, despite its engaging narrative and lovely prose, this adult reader was conscious of some very ugly class ideas running just beneath the surface, and as much as I tried to ignore it, I simply couldn't. I found myself rather disturbed by some of the assumptions behind the Emma Cobley/Lady Alicia rivalry, from the idea that one should marry within one's own class, to the notion that evil results from those who step "out of their place." It's not that I sympathized with Emma Cobley as an individual woman, or found her unbelievable as a villain. But in a very real sense, this is a book about how a working class woman got above herself, and had to be humbled and put back in her place by a group of children. I enjoyed Linnets and Valerians, and will probably revisit it, at some point, but the class issues here do make it a problematic narrative for me.

Addendum: It is also worth noting that there are some parallels between the story of Emma Cobley, and that of Merope Gaunt, mother of Tom Riddle in the Harry Potter books. Given that Rowling has listed Goudge's The Little White Horse as one of her favorite books, it is reasonable to suppose that she has read this title as well. Perhaps Linnets and Valerians was an influence? show less