2024 Virago Salon

Firstly, a very happy new year to all Viragoites - I hope your 2023 was not too bad, though we do seem to be living in a somewhat insane world. Here's hoping 2024 is better for all

I though I would set up a salon for us to hang out this year, for general chat about our favourite publisher and what we've been reading, news and views etc.

I have set up threads for our themed read for 2024 and hopefully some of you will be able to join in.

In the meantime - happy reading in 2024! 😊📚

What a beautiful salon, Karen. I'll just take a seat and make myself comfortable. Wonder if there are any Du Mauriers in the library?

I hope so - that would certainly make January easier!! 😀

Happy New Year everyone! I hope it is a good one for us all, and a MUCH better one for the world.
Thank you for giving us such a lovely place to retreat to, Karen!

Anyone who has access to BBC TV or iplayer may be interested to know that 'All Passion Spent' is being shown on BBC4 on Wednesday next. The series (three programmes) was first shown in the mid 1970s (I think) and stars Wendy Hiller as Lady Slane. I remember watching it at the time, having recently read the Virago edition.

Hello everyone!

I've just discovered this group while trying to research different titles from the old-school Virago Modern Classics line with the beautiful green covers, which I'm just starting to collect for my personal library.

I wanted to ask if anyone had any recommendations of VMC titles that you read or know of that have queer (particularly lesbian/sapphic) themes. I know authors like Vita-Sackville West, H.D., Willa Cather, Maureen Duffy, or Brigid Brophy have had some books published as part of that collection but I'm sure there must be others.

I'd greatly appreciate any recommendations you might have!

Here are some more titles though I haven't read them all and wouldn't necessarily recommend the ones I have! Might be worth a look though: Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles, The Friendly Young Ladies by Mary Renault, Summer will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner, Devoted Ladies by Molly Keane (M J Farrell), Smoke and Other Stories by Djuna Barnes and Olivia by Olivia (Dorothy Bussey).

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall comes to mind. It's been years since I read it, but I rated it 4.5 stars.

>7 Soupdragon: Thank you so much! I had some of those on my list already but some I had never heard of

>8 lauralkeet: Thank you! I only recently found out there's a VMC edition of The Well of Loneliness. I already have the Penguin Modern Classics edition but if I ever find the VMC edition I'm not above owning duplicates haha. Especially since it's the type of book I will gladly reread

I finished A Particular Place by Mary Hocking (1989).

Last year I read her Fairley family trilogy (Good Daughters, Indifferent Heroes and Welcome Strangers, all VMC), which are set before, during and after WWII. I enjoyed these books, particularly the first & last, so I was looking forward to A Particular Place.

At first I wasn't sure where this novel was going, but it gradually grew on me and in the end, I loved it. New vicar Michael Hoath and his wife Valentine come to a small country village to serve the Anglican congregation. The vicar and his wife don't seem terribly suited to one another: he is studious and thoughtful; she is tall, remote, chic and beautiful, and completely uninterested in religion or church affairs. Theirs is a strained relationship. Michael eventually finds a kindred spirit in the village: kind, drab and newly-married Norah, a former nurse, who is dealing with a selfish & wrathful husband. The close friendship between Michael & Norah threatens the vicar's marriage. All this is wryly observed by Michael's Aunt Hester.

There's a lot about women's place in the church and in the world (after all, it's the 1980s), but also about relationships and marriage and doing our best with what we are given (and what we have chosen). As Norah says "I have learnt that we have to do what we can in the particular place where we find ourselves....Here is where you are, Norah Kendall, and all that is asked is that you make your best of it."

Anna Wickham, The Writings of Anna Wickham: Free Woman and Poet.

There's a poem in there about "Hope" ... something along the lines "where there is no faith at least there is still hope" ... can someone find it and post the whole poem here?

73yo, broke my hip last Friday. In rehab hospital. WANT to go on but don't know if I can.

Can't get to my house and my books to find this poem. Am almost sure book is Virago but not necessarily VMC.

PLEASE need whole poem now. Please post WHOLE poem here.

I’m currently reading The Unlit Lamp by Radclyffe Hall.
This was her first novel written before her most famous one , The Well of Loneliness.
It’s beautifully written.

I also love Willa Cather.

Love the original green Virago’s.

Welcome to the group.

Mary.

Rural Hours: The Country Lives of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann https://amzn.eu/d/gaRO5jY

This is 99p for Kindle on amazon.co.uk at the moment.

>14 Soupdragon: Aargh! Of course I just bought this in print! Oh well! I'm glad more people will be able to read it at that price.

>14 Soupdragon: Thanks for the heads up! I've been wondering about this one, but for 99p I will give it a go!!

>14 Soupdragon: Thanks!

>12 CurrerBell: I found this poem by Wickham in my Virago edition. Could this be it?

FAITH
I keep a bird in my heart,
He lives in sorrow,
His name is Faith.
He is so quick a conjurer that he can borrow
Flesh from a wraith.

He swallows the hard weeds of pain
And give me scope,
To rend my little garden-plot again
And wait for Hope.

So late in reading your post Mike. I hope this finds you very much mended. ~Cate

>12 CurrerBell: So sorry I missed your message, Mike. I hope you're getting the pain relief you need and that it is getting easier to carry on.