British Author Challenge March 2022: The Interwar Period (11 November 1918-1 September 1939)

The period between the end of World War One and the start of World War Two was a time of great change around the world: ancient empires collapsed* and new nations were born; Ireland was partitioned; communism and fascism rose; the Twenties roared and the Thirties depressed.

Since 1918 was almost over when WWI ended and 1939 was 2/3 done by the time WWII started, I'm going to say anything published from 1919 through 1939 can count for this theme.

*Although the British Empire still spanned the globe.

Suggestions
Miss Mole by E. H. Young
Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield
The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment by D. E. Stevenson
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
Wigs on the Green by Nancy Mitford
The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston by Siegfried Sassoon
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West
The Nutmeg Tree by Margery Sharp
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
Living by Henry Green
The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
Shabby Tiger by Howard Spring
Imperial Palace by Arnold Bennett
The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany
Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier
A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
The African Queen by C. S. Forester
South Riding by Winifred Holtby
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
My Husband Simon by Mollie Panter-Downes
Daughters and Sons by Ivy Compton-Burnett
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers
Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis
Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood

I haven’t yet decided what to read in March but there are a few contenders. I’ll see what’s available at the library first, I think.

How about Kipling's THE JUNGLE BOOK?

>3 m.belljackson: The Jungle Book came out in 1894, so too early for this theme.

>4 amanda4242: Okay - I had read that Kipling died in 1936 so thought book had fallen into that time.

I have Diary of a Provincial Lady lined up to read.

>6 cbl_tn: One of my favorites!

I started early--this month I've read:

1934: Miss Buncle's Book, D. E. Stevenson, a re-read; so much fun! and was even better the 2nd time
1934: Burmese Days, George Orwell, relentlessly depressing but well-written.

I've identified over a dozen books on my shelves that I could read next month. Here are my main contenders:

1919 William -- An Englishman, Cicely Hamilton
1927 The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen
✔ 1929 A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf
1930 High Wages, Dorothy Whipple
✔ 1931 My Husband Simon, Mollie Panter-Downes
1932 Thank Heaven Fasting, E. M. Delafield
✔ 1934 Rumour of Heaven, Beatrix Lehmann
✔ 1937 Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie

>1 amanda4242: I loved all of these:

Miss Mole by E. H. Young
Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment by D. E. Stevenson

I picked While Still We Live by Helen MacInnes, which starts in 1939.

>10 fuzzi: Except it was published in 1944, and this is the month for books that came out between the wars. It would work for August's espionage theme, though.

>1 amanda4242: SO. MANY. BOOKS.

Hahaha. I love having so many choices.

>11 amanda4242: well, bummer. I misread that as taking place through 1939.

>12 brenzi: My biggest trouble is deciding where to start!

>13 fuzzi: I've made "published" bold to make it clearer.

Probably my favourite era in fiction.

I will read Lolly Willowes.

>14 amanda4242: found one!


These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer, which was published in 1926.

>15 PaulCranswick: Lolly Willowes didn't wow me, but I liked it enough to want to try another of Warner's books.

>16 fuzzi: Heyer is another author I keep meaning to read more of.

I'm going with COLD COMFORT FARM and the joy of Rufus Sewell in the movie!

Rachel Ferguson's 1936 novel A Harp in Lowndes Square is free on kindle this week. I know it's available for US and UK, but I'm not sure about other countries.

>18 m.belljackson: I love that book! The 1995 movie is super fun, and there's a 1968 mini-series that I need to get around to watching.

I've picked The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham - I've been looking for an opportunity to read another Maugham, so....

I think I found my March title, thanks to the list here and searching through my library. The convenient marriage by Georgette Hayer is either an absolute delight (according to GoodReads, this may be further elevated by Richard Armitage's audiobook) or the dullest and most tedious Regency story. Unfortunately, I need to give back one of my non-Polish books in order to borrow Heyer, so it will be at least another week before I can see for myself. Will I like it or not? That is the question... (But I have a great joy in reading all these contradictory reviews)

>22 zuzaer: The Convenient Marriage is a good story, but isn't high Heyer.

>23 quondame: Do you have some recommendations, then? I want to read Heyer in English so I'm bound by what is available in the library, but really I scrolled through the titles and picked that one almost randomly.

>24 zuzaer: The Toll-Gate, Unknown Ajax, Frederica, Arabella. A great favorite seems to be The Grand Sophie but I prefer Cotillion and A Lady of Quality.

>24 zuzaer: I like Frederica, Cousin Kate, and Sylvester the best. I think Sylvester was my favorite of those three.

>25 quondame: Of course all of those are outside the time frame for the March theme, but I do second the recommendation of The Unknown Ajax.

Thank you, I'll check them out in the morning :) there were at least 20 of Heyer's novels in the library catalogue so hopefully I find something that you've recommended and published in the correct time, if not, I have The Convenient Marriage to fall back on.

>27 amanda4242: Well who would recommend Heyer's mysteries? I've read them, and only to Heyer completists or 30s mystery completists. Of the interwar historical novels I'd choose The Masqueraders followed by Faro's Daughter then The Convenient Marriage then The Talisman Ring. Heyer's contemporary novels aren't even up to her mysteries as I recall.

>16 fuzzi: ooo, I may well indulge in a reread of that fuzzy.

I found "The Masqueraders", then "Frederica" and "Cousin Kate". Looks like I'll have plenty to read! Thank you all, once again, for recommendations.

>30 Caroline_McElwee: first time for me.

>31 zuzaer: excellent.

I've decided it's time to read something by Stella Gibbons that doesn't contain Starkadders and have settled on Nightingale Wood.

Started reading These Old Shades last night. The first time I tried to read it I got to page 63, the marker was still in the book.

Hopefully I'll get farther this time.

>30 Caroline_McElwee: does it start picking up at some point? I'm over 60 pages in and it's dreadfully slow. I'm not giving up but I'm hoping the plot will start moving, soon.

ETA: yippee! It picked up and now I don't want to put it down. :)

Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons

Well, there aren't any actual Starkadders in this book, but readers of Cold Comfort Farm will recognize shades of them in many of the characters. None of the characters in Nightingale Wood are as entertaining, though.

There's not really much to say good or bad about this one: it's a perfectly acceptable example of a romantic comedy. I will say that it's a book I would've expected Gibbons to parody rather than write.

I finished Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile (1937), which I really enjoyed. I liked the set up to the story, the characterizations, and that Poirot was joined by Colonel Race. Plus, I really liked it because I actually correctly guessed whodunit, even though I didn't have it completely figured out how it was done. There are a lot of characters and side stories, and I understand that a movie is coming out (or may already be out) soon, and I can see how this would make a good movie.

Finished my read last night...


These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer

I've read and enjoyed other books by this author before, but this one started a lot slower than I'd expected, and I put it down after about 60 pages. When I determined to give it another chance I was rewarded with an interesting and enjoyable story, a cut above most books of the genre, with less melodramatic breast-beating and angst so common with other authors. Definitely recommended. 4 stars

Rumour of Heaven by Beatrix Lehmann (1934)

Beatrix Lehmann was sister to the novelist Rosamond Lehmann; Beatrix was a well-known actress and wrote 2 novels.

This novel was a bit like a fairy tale and a bit strange. As a wife slowly slips into madness, the husband moves his family to a remote dilapidated farm in southern England. Eventually the wife dies; her husband goes into seclusion; and her 3 children have free reign over Prince's Acre, their rambling, unkempt property.

The main story begins about 1920, when the 3 children (2 are disabled, but in different ways) are now teenagers who have rarely dealt with people from the outside world. Three strangers come into their lives; their worlds collide and the story goes on from there. In part it is about a post-WWI world, trying to make sense of (or escape from) that horror. I didn't love it, but didn't hate it. I'm mostly disappointed because the book didn't live up to the beautiful cover.

>38 fuzzi: Glad it worked for you in the end Fuzzy.

>40 Caroline_McElwee: me too. I should have known better, having read several Heyer books in the past.

The April thread is up!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/340803

>42 amanda4242: thank you!

Here are my books for this month:

Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie (1937)--thoroughly enjoyed this one.
Rumour of Heaven, Beatrix Lehmann (1934)--a rather strange post WWI novel
My Husband Simon, Mollie Panter-Downes (1931)--well-written, about a writer re-examining her marriage
A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf (1929)--essays based on lectures Woolf gave on "Women and Fiction". I underlined something on almost every page.

I've got at least 20 more books on my shelves that fit this theme, so I will be checking in throughout the year as I read them.

In April I read 2 books from the interwar years:
Jenny Wren, E. H. Young (1932) and
The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim (1922); a re-read

The Untidy Gnome by Stella Gibbons

Why is this book out of print?! It's a charming little fairy tale that deserves to be much better known.