All the books of my life
by Sheila Kaye-Smith
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Sheila Kaye-Smith (4 February 1887 - 14 January 1956) was an English writer, known for her many novels set in the borderlands of Sussex and Kent in the English regional tradition. Her 1923 book The End of the House of Alard became a best-seller, and gave her prominence; it was followed by other successes and her books enjoyed worldwide sales.Kaye-Smith's novels straddle more than one genre of fiction. Her earliest novels partly fit into the 'earthy' rural category, together with that of Mary show more E Mann, Mary Webb, D. H. Lawrence, and Thomas Hardy, a genre which inspired Stella Gibbons's parody "Cold Comfort Farm". Kaye-Smith's descriptions of the Sussex countryside, coast and marsh are still regarded as some of the finest. Several of her heroines become single parents and most face various gender-related trials, reflecting her early feminism as well as influences such as George Moore and Thomas Hardy. Kaye-Smith also produced many short stories, and journalism published in national journals, magazines and newspapers. show lessTags
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Wikipedia gives birth and death dates for Sylvia Kaye-Smith as 1887-1956. All The Books of My Life is her biblio-biography. A contemporary of Agatha Christie, she too was a novelist and she writes about both her formative reading as well as her professional career as a writer. She uses a slightly more formal tone than would be used today, but the prose is not necessarily off-putting.
On the dust jacket of my copy, this is how her biblio-biography is introduced. “In this charming book, she traced and analyzed the effect that some of the books she read had on her mindand way of life and recalled the circumstances that led her to read others – from the books of her nursery days, given to or selected for her (sometimes with a number of show more the pages gummed together); the books of her twenties and thirties, read for fashion’s and conscience’s sake; through her middle age when ‘isms’ were both the cult and the objective; to her later years, when she found that she was able to read widely and well, satisfying both her conscience and her intellect.”
Her education was certainly Edwardian; her account of what she was exposed to and read growing up is not so very different from what is encountered in Agatha Christie’s own autobiography. There’s just a slightly more controlled atmosphere in Kaye-Smth’s experience.
Some of the chapters are quite memorable, such as the one entitled “The Pleasures of Insanity”, a title she planned to write, but never did. Other chapters, such as “Sad Pageant of Forgotten Writers”, serve more as a reality check. Kaye-Smith may have been successful as a novelist during her lifetime, but her books have largely fallen into that same abyss. Agatha Christie we remember, but not so much this woman. It was interesting to read her view on bestsellers, which does include some titles that are still available, such as [From Here to Eternity] which supports the assumption that sex sells.
I found this one interesting but I’m not sure how much of it will appeal to a casual reader. Best sought out if one has an interest in the time period of the early twentieth century. show less
On the dust jacket of my copy, this is how her biblio-biography is introduced. “In this charming book, she traced and analyzed the effect that some of the books she read had on her mindand way of life and recalled the circumstances that led her to read others – from the books of her nursery days, given to or selected for her (sometimes with a number of show more the pages gummed together); the books of her twenties and thirties, read for fashion’s and conscience’s sake; through her middle age when ‘isms’ were both the cult and the objective; to her later years, when she found that she was able to read widely and well, satisfying both her conscience and her intellect.”
Her education was certainly Edwardian; her account of what she was exposed to and read growing up is not so very different from what is encountered in Agatha Christie’s own autobiography. There’s just a slightly more controlled atmosphere in Kaye-Smth’s experience.
Some of the chapters are quite memorable, such as the one entitled “The Pleasures of Insanity”, a title she planned to write, but never did. Other chapters, such as “Sad Pageant of Forgotten Writers”, serve more as a reality check. Kaye-Smith may have been successful as a novelist during her lifetime, but her books have largely fallen into that same abyss. Agatha Christie we remember, but not so much this woman. It was interesting to read her view on bestsellers, which does include some titles that are still available, such as [From Here to Eternity] which supports the assumption that sex sells.
I found this one interesting but I’m not sure how much of it will appeal to a casual reader. Best sought out if one has an interest in the time period of the early twentieth century. show less
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